Blessed by Night

"Why the long face?"

Thea was so distracted that she didn\'t notice the very large lion approaching her while carrying a young adult and child.

"Tawa!" Camille held up her arms in excitement and gestured for the beautiful blonde to pick her up.

"Aww, did someone miss me?"

"Bu!"

"Do you think your aunties did too??"

"…Bu!"

"Aww, you\'re so sweet to lie to me!"

As Mal watched Thea rub her face against his daughter, he started to observe her a bit more closely again.

He couldn\'t exactly put his finger on it, but she seemed a bit different from his memory.

It was almost as if she\'d gotten a bit curvier and developed a bit more liveliness to her already charismatic personality.

And she was… taller?

"You seem a little different, T..." Mal finally said.

Thea looked down at her outfit that kept her fully covered and made a depressed face.

"Yea, my moms said I should stop dressing to seduce your sister..."

"No, I meant… Nevermind, buddy." He decided at the last moment that maybe he had bigger fish to fry for now.

It was then that Thea noticed that Mal looked normal once again and his power was far below it\'s usual standard.

She reached out to pet the large lion that had been carrying the father-daughter pair. "I see you\'re following my brother\'s advice and trying to keep your power in check. How do you feel?"

"Weaker than Cami." He admitted.

Naturally, Camille looked quite offended by his choice of words.

Her mind was already conjuring up a slew of words that were certainly inappropriate for a child to use and that she only knew because of Anna.

"If you don\'t mind... I kind of wanted to ask you for a favor." Mal suddenly leaned forward.

"You\'re cute, but not my type, Mal. I have a few sisters I could ask though if-"

"No!" Mal chopped Thea on the head in mild annoyance- making her pout.

"I wanted to know if you could... maybe help me train a bit."

"Eh?"

"Your brother told me that you were the best one to help me get control of my new power. Mind giving me a hand?"

"He really said that?? Did you get it on recording!?" Thea\'s eyes lit up immediately.

"T."

"Right, right, sorry." Thea shook her head hard to try to bring herself back to normal.

"Well I don\'t mind helping you, but I need a favor in return! ...Actually two." she realized.

Already Mal was getting a bad feeling. "Do these favors have anything to do with my sister..?"

"One does!" Thea smiled innocently.

Malachi smiled a bit nervously as the fear that he was about to be asked for something unreasonable welled up in his stomach.

But regardless of whether or not Thea\'s request ended up being unreasonable or not, he desperately needed her help if he was going to be mission-ready in a few days from now, so he had no choice but to agree.

-

"...If I had known this training was going to be something so simplistic I probably wouldn\'t have agreed to betray my family to you."

"Well too bad, sweetface! The deal is done and the cake\'s been baked!" Thea nodded in satisfaction.

Malachi grimaced as he stared at the obstacle in front of him.

At first glance, it was relatively simple and seemed like no more than a regular tall pane of glass.

That was until one realized that it was even taller than Malachi and thicker than two bank vault doors glued together.

"Impressed?" Thea smirked as she tapped the big block of glass with her knuckle.

Her pride stemmed from the fact that she had created this glassy monstrosity out of thin air with seemingly nothing but her magic.

"I guess if I ever need new windows put in, I know who to call." he shrugged nonchalantly.

Thea proceeded to flip him off in a gesture that Camille, who was sitting in a hastily erected play area nearby, copied.

"...I\'m starting to feel like you\'re learning too much from adults." Mal narrowed his eyes.

Camille picked up a toy sitting at her side and nuzzled it innocently.

\'Aww...\'

Just like that, Malachi forgot everything that he was previously concerned about and was only interested in the fluffiness of his daughter\'s cheeks.

"Alright, here\'s how this first little exercise of yours is going to work." Thea smiled. "Your goal is to use the new energy in your body to break this entire block of glass all at once!"

"Oh?"

"Without hitting it!"

"Oh..."

Thea placed her palm against the surface of the glass and Mal could\'ve sworn that he saw it blush.

"The goal is to deliver just enough power evenly throughout the block so that it all breaks at once. If you use too little..."

A few small cracks appeared on the inner surface of the glass, but the whole thing didnt break apart.

"Or if you use too much..." The entire block of glass shattered and was exploded into pieces so fine that they were indistinguishable from regular sand.

After a few seconds, the block rebuilt itself and was as good as new.

"Or if you use too much without properly dispersing it..."

Using only her palm, Thea pierced a hole clear through the block and her aura struck the wall fifty meters away.

At which point, the rest of the block seemed to come crumbling down into large chunks.

When the block rebuilt itself, Thea applied just the right amount of pressure so that she could break the block apart into tiny fragments of glass- each piece no bigger than the kind that would come from a broken car window.

"This is wha it should look like when done properly. You can manage something like this, right?"

"Looks easy enough.." Mal shrugged.

"Great! Be sure to channel exactly the same amount of power that you used against Apophis and build up from there, alright?

And try not to burn yourself out and keep your limit in mind." Thea held up both thumbs and slowly began backing away.

"Uhhh, where are you going?"

"Just to go and have a chat with this \'Rose\' girl. that you told me about. It\'ll just be for a quick little five minute chat and then I will be back in a flash!"

"Thea, don\'t-"

"Buh-bye! Happy training!"

The beautiful princess was gone in a fraction of a second and left Mal behind with baby Camille.

\'Well... She promised not to mention my name, so nobody should be questioning me about how she found out, right?\'

Just for good luck, Malachi prayed this inner denial of his would actually come to fruition.

"A-Anyway…Come here, Serosh." Mal called.

The large black lion who had been lying at Camille\'s side and keeping her company suddenly trotted over to Malachi\'s side.

He also recalled the impundulu whom he\'d affectionately named Zazu back into his body- all the way from the kitchen downstairs.

With a single touch, Serosh transformed into a mass of energy and promptly entered the same hybrid-tiger state that he was in just one day ago.

Placing his furry hand onto the glass, Malachi gathered the same amount of power into his body as he\'d used against Apophis.

With Camille cheering him on from the sidelines, his whiskered jaw fell open in absurdity when he infused all of his power into the glass and he couldn\'t so much as crack it.

His mind went back to the ease with which Thea had done this before leaving and he felt even more bewildered.

"What the actual fuck is that girl…?"