Darkness Magic Class (Basic)

[Deleted]

Aly grinned. Negative sources? Half the time, she was steaming mad and/or thinking about pranking, insulting, teasing, or inflicting pain on nearby people. Mostly Lika.
Still, as always, she had a question. "I've only got one element," Aly voiced out loud. "Are you sure I can handle something besides fire?" From her experience in trying to use other elements, she'd either injured herself or fainted. Usually to the amusement of nearby people. "And to be honest, I don't handle other elements well."

[Omni]

Omni listened to Subila explain how her darkness magic worked, and heard her mention how it could backfire. That was why she had been nervous, it wasn't the presence of the dark energy, it was what it might do to her if she wasn't careful. She then heard her say things to Salah, and already thoughts were running through her head about darkness being the absence of light and nobody being perfect and other such things.

She turned her thoughts away from that, and started to focus on the test. It sounded simple enough, creating a ball of energy for a short amount of time. She held her paw in front of her, took a breath and focused. She thought about directing any negative energy she had through her front leg, and out to form a ball.

Nothing. Maybe it was because she still had that song in her head. Sunshine. A bright sunny blue sky...

She tried switching to a song that wasn't so... happy, and tried again. Still nothing.

In idea popped in her head, and she muttered something about 'let me try something...' This time, she took some of the the dark energy in the room, which mostly seemed to emanate from Subila, pulled it in, focused it, and stored it. Then she took some of it back out, and focused it through her. She was surprised for an instant when she saw the ball actually form, but then remembered to count. One locomotive, two locomotive, three locomotive...

"I got it!" she said, almost shouting, the song she tried to suppress returning to her head.

[Salah~]

Salah bit her lip. She stared at the far wall for a few seconds, trying to think of what to say, but finally gave up on even saying, 'Could you please clarify that last sentence?' Staring down at her desk, she wondered how on earth one was supposed to go about concentrating angry feelings. It was all very well to tell yourself you were going to feel angry, but it wasn't that easy when you actually tried.

What made her think she could do any sort of dark magic, anyway? Either you were born with it or you weren't, and Salah was certain no dark magic had been present at her birth. Who knew how people like Kat and Omni could juggle twelve types of magic at once. Anyone could have anger, but Salah was positive that not just anyone could channel it as magic.

"I give up," Salah grumbled in a completely inaudible tone. Forming a ball of pure shadow in the air almost effortlessly, she held it up. "There you go. Negative emotions, darkness. Pretend they're somehow related."

Figures, she thought savagely to herself. I finally manage to make myself angry, and who do I lose my temper at but my teacher.

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Subila's attention was diverted towards Omni, who had managed to effortlessly pass the test. She could feel an ounce of her own dark energy being drawn towards Omni's ball of dark energy, which was actually surprising for her. She wasn't expecting someone to be able to pass her first test without having to try hard.

"You..." she continued looking at Omni. "... used not only the room but even me as your source. You might be able to excel in my class with that enthusiasm and ingenuity."

Moments later, Subila widened her eyes, sensing a darker presence of the same thing. She quickly turned her head towards Salah, who had managed not only to make a ball of dark energy, but even make it levitate in mid-air. The half-feline watched in amazement: even she had to use up a large amount of time to perfect her channeling, and the girl in front of her had just let out the same effort in her first try.

Trying to hide her amazement, Subila smiled. "See? What did I tell you? You can channel dark energy. You just have to try hard." She closed her eyes and widened her smile. "Actually, you have an advantage over me. Being only an Alternate, I am able to cast any type of magic except Light. You, however, have a potential to break free from your own entrapment."

Subila swallowed what Omni and Salah had just created, channeling them into her own hands. Slowly, the energy in both hands compressed themselves, forming what seemed to be two black badges. The half-feline put them on the right arms of the two.

"You two are the first to pass the test."

[Salah~]

Salah bit her lip, suddenly feeling even more guilty than she had for losing her temper. "Um..." she began. "It's not exactly darkness magic, more absence of light..." She released the ball of shadow into the air, suddenly afraid Subila would think she'd been cheating when actually she'd only lost her temper. She hadn't realized that a ball of darkness would look the same as a ball of dark magic.

Staring at her hands, Salah went back to wondering how in the world you could turn an emotion to magic. The closest thing she'd heard of was losing control over magic due to emotional issues, and that really wasn't related at all.

More to distract herself than to help her magic, Salah tried to push away all of the light magic surrounding her. Her eyes faded to their natural shade of gray hazel, and her shadow reappeared beneath her. Okay, there you go, absence of light magic, she told herself. Now how do you get from there to dark? Now that she thought about it, she couldn't see any reason the two were opposites. Her light magic was about manipulating light and illusions. Darkness magic was about negative emotions. Where was the connection?

Pushing away the light more vigorously just on the hopes that it would help, Salah suddenly found herself in pitch black and almost screamed before realizing that it was her own magic. Catching her breath as the light flowed back into the room, Salah found herself staring at misshapen lump of dark magic. I did it! she thought fleetingly before it vanished.

Great. Just great. How the heck could you not feel positive after almost completing such an impossible task?

[Omni]

Subila looked over when Omni had announced her accomplishment. "You..." she said, "... used not only the room but even me as your source. You might be able to excel in my class with that enthusiasm and ingenuity."

Omni smiled a little, the dark ball still intact in front of her. "Thanks. I already knew how to channel energy, I just needed a good source of energy to channel." The nice part was that this way, it wasn't affected by her own emotions; so long as she focused enough on the energy and where to channel it, it would stay.

Subila took Omni's dark ball, as well as Salah's, and compressed them into badges. She attached the one made from Omni's ball onto Omni's right front leg. "You two are the first to pass the test."

"Um..." Salah spoke up. "It's not exactly darkness magic, more absence of light..."

There came those thoughts about darkness being the absence of light again... Oh wait, does she mean that she used her light-manipulating magic rather than emotion?

Her guess appeared to be right, as Salah started attempting to make another dark ball without using her light magic to make it. Omni started wondering if she could use her badge as a dark energy source or if it would disappear.

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Subila's face turned sour after Salah tried to explain how she got her ball of dark energy, but not because the latter was cheating. "You obviously weren't listening to my introduction. Dark energy is actually called by many terms. 'Absense of light' is one of them. If you're still confused, you'll just have to... try to manipulate the object to see if it is indeed dark energy."

Subila had almost forgotten Aly's question, as she quickly turned her head. "Aly, sorry for ignoring your question. Like Salah, you can somehow create some use for the dark energy that, unbeknownst to you, is lying all around you."

She walked towards Aly and positioned herself beside the girl. "If you're scared that your trial will fail for the first time, don't worry. I'll be here for your safety."

[Salah~]

Salah scowled at the ground because scowling at Subila's back seemed too rude. Of course darkness wasn't magic everywhere you saw it - Salah was sure she would have noticed that. The only use absence of light had to her was that it scared her. Okay, and maybe she thought it was a little icky, too.

Those sounded like the sources of negative emotions to her.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed all the light away from her, enveloping herself in a cylinder of darkness.

Panic at her sudden inability to see.

Annoyance at fear of the dark, of all things.

Revulsion at being surrounded by darkness; to Salah, it was like being covered in mud.

Embarrassment at how weird she must look to the rest of the class.

Salah suddenly realized that nobody would be able to see any darkness magic if it was surrounded by a complete absence of light. Good, she thought faintly to herself. Worry was negative. Besides, if her teacher couldn't recognize dark magic in the same room, she wasn't much of a teacher. Salah absolutely refused to subject herself to the relief when she released her cloud of darkness.

[Deleted]

"Aly, sorry for ignoring your question. Like Salah, you can somehow create some use for the dark energy that, unbeknownst to you, is lying all around you."Subila quietly walked towards her. "If you're scared that your trial will fail for the first time, don't worry. I'll be here for your safety."
Allianne wasn't sure whether she should be annoyed, indignant, or relieved. "'Kay," was all she said. The girl half-grinned, half-frowned (if that was possible). Subila's statement had just reminded her that she could possibly fail. Possibly. Just a bit.
It's a ball of dark, she thought. Just like fire. Shouldn't be too hard.
Besides. Hadn't she always wanted to have another element? Another way to fight?
The girl closed her eyes tightly, searching for whatever pool of fire magic she had and poking at the edges. She was annoyed to see it was low, and hoped that channeling dark energy wouldn't lower it further.
That would be why it's called channeling, she thought, frowning. The fire was as bright as ever, but there wasn't any dark tendrils or such in it.
Magic is more physical. Subila said negative sources, like emotions...
You called?
Aly opened her eyes and whipped her head around, casting a sharp gaze around the room. No way she can read my mind. And then, Isn't the door shut tight?
She could almost see Lika's cat-grin. Did you think a door could keep me out? It doesn't. I'm always around to talk to you, Aly...
Well, it wasn't thought-proof. Thoroughly annoyed, she clenched her fist tight and tried to resist grabbing her dagger. That darn cat...either she had an extremely distinct mean streak or Aly was imagining things.
Her fist felt cold. She opened her eyes and blinked again as the black color abruptly faded before her eyes. "You're kidding me," she muttered, the usual warmth returning. Of course. She was always at perfect temperature if it wasn't too cold, because she always used a touch of fire magic to do so.
The fire mage kept her eyes open and tried again, thinking of Lika's teasing taunts. A tiny tongue of black flame licked her thumb before dying. "Well, I think I did it," she said, turning to address Subila and grinning. Black flame! Cool!
She then realized that she'd been sitting on her foot too long, as it had fallen asleep. The girl stood up, shook the foot out, and swore under her breath in what sounded like a combination of Spanish and some other language. "Dang it."

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Subila watched as Allianne tried to channel dark energy in her own hands. It took a fairly long amount of time before Aly finally grabbed an ounce of what the half-feline was looking for. However, it didn't last long before it died.

"... You'll have to try again. I said, you have to hold it for three seconds. Shorter than that, and casting dark magic would be very dangerous for such sudden outburst", she said, patting Aly's left shoulder.

[Salah~]

Starting to remember how little patience she had, Salah spoke from her block of shadow.

"Um, I think I did it," she said in the direction she had last heard Subila speak from.

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Subila's eyes darted towards Salah, who had just released another one of her own dark energy. "You already did, moments ago... But I see that you wanted to double-check your own abilities," she noticed.

Subila then went back behind her desk. "Everyone, you only have three minutes (24 hours IRL) left. Please make your actions now."

[Salah~]

Salah glared, invisible inside her shadow. "No, that's not what I meant, I mean I really did it this time. It's inside here, it's just not visible because I'm surrounded in darkness. Not darkness magic, darkness."

[Vyt: Down, but Not Out]

Subila rolled her eyes. She realized that continuing the argument would lead her to nowhere. Whether she keeps on arguing or not, the half-feline knew very well that Salah was now satisfied with her own trial.

"Okay, okay," she bluntly said. "You pass NOW. Happy?"

[Elcie]

Elycien narrowed her eyes in concentration, cupping her hands. A ball of shadow had formed there, swirling and pulsing slightly. After a few seconds, she dismissed it, then paused. She had been summoning shadow since she was a child, but it was difficult to draw on the actual dark energy that Subila described. She kept automatically reverting to shadow instead.

After a few minutes, her frustration had sharply increased. Hissing, she sent a surge of energy into the space between her hands - and the ball of darkness formed again, this time with a pure blackness and sense of slight malevolence that her own shadow magic rarely had. The Thirecat smiled faintly.