James faced the ratlings in the middle of the old sewer lair's gym, ready for battle. In a corner of the room, Trixie the ghost girl alternated between watching the fight-to-be and playing a game on the phone James had lent her.

The ratlings furrowed their furry brows as James stretched and spun to ready himself, changing some part of his body into gas, liquid, and shadow all the while. He rarely had the opportunity to prepare himself for a fight, so he was curious to see if small exercises helped.

"So, are you ready then kids?"

David immediately took on a smug look.

"We're going to demolish you, old man."

"Oh? Come on then. Show me what you've got!"

At that David immediately stepped forward and James readied himself for a leap... Before his small son jumped back in front of his siblings, who had quickly spread out into a circle, standing on their hind paws and shoulder to shoulder, leaving a spot open for their bloodthirsty brother who grinned once more as he joined the formation.

"Behold and despair, old man, a defensive strategy!"

Oh, I can't sneak up on them like this, or use their attacks against them. Smart move, kids. But it won't be enough.

"Oh no, whatever shall I do."

David raised what would probably be an eyebrow on a human at his father's tone before James liquified and rushed at the ratlings' formation, splitting into multiple streams still connected to his shadow on the ground that went beneath their paws and rose like enormous snakes in the middle of their little circle, James even forming a more solid cobra head at the end of each one to further the transformative trick. The snakes hissed at the ratlings who instinctively stepped back, except for Lucille and David, the mature sister climbing up the fake reptile's body to step onto its head and avoid its jaw before attacking, struggling to fit on it despite its enormous size due to her own growth spurt, while the manic brother directly tore at his opponent's throat, disregarding what it could do to him.

"Don't forget guys, it's just the old man! It's not like he's gonna bite and eat you for real!"

The snake David was fighting grew even further before opening its jaws wide, the lower mandibles separating as it engulfed him and began to swallow, more and more of the rodent's body disappearing inside as it was dragged in by another pair of mandibles inside the false beast's maw.

"David!"

"Never underestimate an opponent kids!"

David groaned inside the black as Goliath and Foudre rushed in to help him before they were stopped in their tracks by their own false snakes opponents they had ignored thus far. Blanche in the meantime relied on her self-taught primitive martial art to redirect her opponent's lunge into the ground with her pristine paws, the gaping jaws of the cobra head melting into the shadow on the floor before emerging back behind her back just in time for her to redirect it once more, straight into the head Lucille was fighting. As the two shadowy bodies collided they fused in pulses and contractions, turning into a bigger creature - one whose head Lucille could comfortably stand on, and thus let her go all out.

Blanche trusted her sister to handle the new massive snake and looked at Foudre's and Goliath's fights to determine which one was the most in need of help, Foudre was slowly backing away from her opponent, evading its every attack but unable to counter them, while on the other side Goliath was handling their father's shapeshifting incredibly well. He used his mass and size to grab onto its body and pull, slowly ripping the cobra's head from the shadow on the floor their father had turned into.

The choice was easy to make, and Blanche ran on all fours to join her sister just as David went on a wild rampage in his shadowy prison, multiple clawing attacks creating openings for him to see the outside through before they closed back. Lucille, currently testing the improved physiology of the giant snake she stood on as it struggled and shook wildly in the air to throw her off, simply sighed as she saw the mad bulge her younger brother had turned into.

"David, it regenerates! Don't make multiple small cuts, make a single large one! You don't want to rip out something's guts, you want to slash a throat!"

David's angry muffled response wasn't worth listening to, but sadly she still paid attention to it. She knew dismissing information during a fight was reckless.

"I know that you stupid-"

Yes, not worth listening to.

"Language, young man!"

David screamed before biting into the black flesh imprisoning him and he spun on himself, tearing a large chunk of the shadowy material out and creating an opening just large enough for his relatively small body to slip through that he quickly utilized, still holding the chunk between his teeth until a small tentacle rose from the shadow on the ground and snatched it down. The small rodent groaned before eyeing up the large snake he had just escaped, the imitation looking back at him as its wound sealed and it flickered its forked tongue. David snarled and nearly leaped back on the snake's throat before holding back.

"Guys, I don't think plan A is working."

Blanche, currently redirecting the oncoming assaults of dozens of smaller snakes that one of the original five heads had split into once she had joined Foudre, rolled her eyes as her sister helped her by cutting off some of the heads.

"We noticed, mister psychopath!"

David was ready to insult her back but it was at this point that his gigantic opponent tried to swallow him up once more, David jumped to the right to avoid but the cobra's head simply turned and kept on going, letting its lower part meld into the shadow on the floor, the serpentine form turning into a shark's opened jaws, swimming in the shadow after David and ready to bite down on him before being hit by a large black mass - a recently ripped off snake head. David nodded at Goliath who gave him a thumbs-up in turn.

"As I was saying, plan A failed. I think it's time we go with plan B!"

Lucille, from the top of the remaining giant snake, which was currently shapeshifting into a very angry mouthed worm, voiced her agreement.

"David's right. It's time to go all out, everyone!"

Oh?

James' curiosity was piqued, and it was even more so when all the ratlings nodded at their responsible sister. James didn't know what to expect, and what followed truly surprised him.

From the top of the worm, Lucille jumped high in the air and spread her limbs and tails, falling belly-first into the worm's maw as they suddenly took on a metallic shine. As she fell into the dark abyss below, her paws, tail, and incisors, still coated in a strange metallic shine, easily cut through the black flesh of the worm, turning into ribbons that fell not unlike an empty banana peel.

Oh, nice trick. Not enough against me but- wait what?

Whatever Lucille had done had an impact on his regeneration and shapeshifting. It didn't prevent it completely, but it did slow it enough for her attack to successfully turn the fake worm into a pile of long strips that wouldn't be worth reforming. As soon as he could - which meant barely a second after his daughter's paws touched the ground - James reclaimed the black ribbons into his shadowy main body on the ground and tried to quickly figure out the best way to deal with her, as well as her siblings - they hadn't been idle while Lucille was doing her thing, after all.

Foudre, akin to her name, had begun to emit small blue sparks from her claws that stung him and, like Lucille's metal coating although to a blessed degree, slowed James' control over his body, allowing her to reduce the number of snakes she and Blanche had to deal with, the white rat still mostly utilizing the same redirecting trick but no longer making contact with the imitations, instead relying on an invisible force that allowed her to easily deal with multiple heads at the same time and even occasionally send out invisible blasts that completely exploded them, though this time James had no trouble reforming them right after.

Goliath didn't do anything special and stuck to using his size to wrestle with the shadow shark, but David on the other had a brand new trick to display as well. As Goliath ripped off the top of the shark from the shadow on the ground, James hurried to form the lower half jumping in the air behind Goliath to catch him off-guard but right as the two halves of the shark were going to combine blades of air rained down on the fake fish and tore it apart, the force of the wind separating the black flesh even further and preventing James from just gluing the parts back together. What little he managed to assemble to form an angry piranha immediately was punched through by Goliath's suddenly red-glowing paw, and it was hot. James instinctively dissolved his construct back to escape the burn.

Seeing his little animal party had failed, James retracted all of his spread mass back into the shadow he had become before slithering away from the ratlings to put some distance and reforming in his usual Silhouette form.

"Wow. That was amazing, kids."

"Thank you, father."

"Thanks, daddy!"

"See, old man? We can take you on no problem."

"Don't get cocky, David. Dad hasn't used magic, otherwise, it'd already be over."

"Oh shut it. Besides, it's already over. The old man can't win with our elemental attacks taking out his stuff."

"Psycho, you forgot the part where we can't win either since papa always regenerates. It's what we civilized folks call a stalemate."

"Shut it, whitey."

"You little-"

"Blanche, language. And David, be nicer to your sisters. But seriously kids, where did all that elemental stuff come from?"

"Dunno dad, it just happened one day during training while you weren't there. I was just practicing chops when suddenly boom, electricity. Since then we have all tried to use those better in fights, and even in general."

"Yes, papa! I don't need to dirty my paws by holding the food now!"

"And we surely could do more if my beloved siblings weren't so complacent when it came to their training, father."

"Traitor! You're just as eager to stop to watch Captain Cyan as we are!"

"In any case, is this sparring session over? I do believe we proved our effectiveness. We have grown, both literally and metaphorically."

"Yeah, you sure did become better kids. But this isn't over."

David Threw his paws in the air.

"Oh come on, old man!"

"You improved greatly, and by working together you can handle foes stronger than you. But that isn't enough. There are far more powerful entities in this world, ones that you will most definitely face if you stay true to your dream of becoming Heroes."

"Dad, it's not like we'll be facing off against Titans as Captain Cyan did. We'll start with regular crooks before moving onto the serious stuff."

"I know. But how can you be sure that danger won't come to you? Or that it is hidden in plain sight? I told you earlier, I ended up facing off against a demon down there - and we're supposed to be in one of the safer areas of the slums and the Sunken City."

"You won't scare us with a spooky story like that, old man. I'm sure you kicked its-"

"It nearly killed me."

David froze at that, and his and the rest of the ratlings' eyes widened. Small spasms and the beginning of tears appeared on them all.

"WHAT!"

"Da... Daddy?"

"Father? Are you..."

"My magic and powers were nearly useless against it, and yours would have probably been as well. It tore through me as we do with cockroaches, and if it hadn't been for its overconfidence I might not be here today. And that thing was simply around, with no obvious sign. I only knew to be ready for it because we did our research, and even then the weapon we prepared that would have erased any of our previous opponents didn't even inconvenience it. As Heroes, how can you be sure you will never be in a similar situation? Pursuing a small-time criminal that ends up awakening a monster beyond what you should be able to handle? You need to be ready for this sort of scenario."

"I..."

"Hence why I will now try my best to simulate it."

"Eh?"

"I do not have its resistance to magic, hence why I will ask you to refrain from using your elemental attacks. Tricks are fine."

"Papa?"

James' body began to shift, becoming taller, thinner, more humanoid, a skeletal creature with wings of thin veins sprouting from its back and powerful tentacles replacing what should have been a head. A mere copy of Sydakors' form.

"Behold, kids. An echo of a demon."

The veiny wings emerging from James' back immediately untied and became a flurry of powerful whips aiming at the ratlings and their surroundings, giving them no time to breathe. Lucille barely managed to block a strike with her metal-coated tail before she had to jump back and run to avoid the following ones, Foudre and Blanche tried to avoid a few veins and make use of the openings to strike back but they were instantly caught off-guard by even more whips coming in from all directions and sent flying into the wall, their furry bodies falling on the ground afterward, Goliath tried to tank as many hits as possible and approach James' humanoid form but it took only a few seconds before he barely managed to stand under the constant assault, and David tried to leap onto James' torso by boosting his jump with his air powers and even used his ability to successfully avoid getting battered away by the mad veins, but was promptly snatched up by the tentacles of the head which constricted him and held him above the dark abyss of the fake demon's jaw, the small rat shaking madly and fighting to escape the constrictive grasp but only tiring himself.

Lucille tried to run back in to help her younger brother, but as soon as she turned around to cease her initial retreat one of the veins hit her side and threw her into the air, leaving her defenseless against the following strikes.

In less than half a minute, all of the ratlings had been defeated.

James seized the mad flurry of the veins and returned to his regular humanoid form, releasing his hold on David and letting him drop back on the floor. As soon as his paws landed on the black tiles of the gym, the hothead of the siblings froze in silence, the only sound leaving his body being his rapid heartbeat and breathing. From James' shadow on the ground rose tentacles that picked up the rest of the group and brought them close, more tendrils branching off to pet them and check their injuries.

"This is the sort of thing you could have to face. Oh, I'm sure you would have done much better with your new powers, but as I said, these won't always work. If you want to be Heroes as great as Captain Cyan, you need to be better."

None of them were in a state where they could answer coherently. The closest would be Goliath's mumbling, though James attributed that more to being moved than reacting to his voice.

"Right, I'll talk about that when you're rested up. Well, I guess it's time for a nap. David, are you- oh."

In the time it had taken for James to father the others and talk mostly for himself, David had apparently gotten over his adrenaline rush and already collapsed into an unconscious mess.

"Well, that settles it. Family nap time. I'm sorry for the inconvenience Trixie, I'm sure they'll be ready to play when they wake up. In the meantime, you can hold onto their phone."

The little ghost girl nodded, and as James turned around to leave the gym and go to the ratlings' room, hugging them close with a little help from some light shapeshifting, he didn't miss the way she tried to punch into the air and made some karate chops.

I hope Greenheld doesn't get mad at me about this...