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The following day, the training began.
At morning, the hyena, the lion, the cats and the human went through normal physical training: exercise, jogging, etc...
The afternoon began with a quick nap then theoritical lessons on the multiverse, the other universes of the Bulwark...
They thus learned that the two main holograms they saw were of two superheroes (in their respective universes) named "Space Ghost" and "Birdman".
After the theory, the practice with hand-to-hand combat and shooting training.
They didn't feel at ease with the latter, until they learned they'd mainly use special stunners, made from Sapientist reverse engineered tech.
But they'd still have to learn to wield blasters and normal guns too.
"Stunners won't work on their drones," said Race. "And sometimes, you'll have no choice but to use something else."
That put them back at unease, but they admitted the point.
So they got to it.
After a few days, once the "theory" was over and they were fully caught up with the known history of the multiverse, these lessons were replaced by flying lessons, in normal single ships.
This was by far their favorite lesson.
One day, Top Cat asked what happened to the Ragnarok.
"Me and my colleagues are studying it," answered Dr Quest. "It's an amazing catch, one of the most important and powerful ships of the Sapientists. Its multiversal jump drive all alone will help us considerably in reverse engineering and upgrading our capacities."
In parallel, Hardy sometimes went back to the deserted universe to fine tune his control over the power the Star gave him.

Three weeks passed, and the guys were settling in a sort of routine.
Different from their usual ones, but enjoyable too.
Though Hardy noticed Lippy recently seemed to come out of the training sessions looking depressed.
The hyena tried more than once to ask the lion what was wrong, but every time, he answered "Oh, I'm just tired".
Like right now, just after the physical training.
That was a lie and Hardy knew it, but he couldn't do much if Lippy didn't want to.
So he just accepted it, even if he didn't like it.
But barely a few minutes later, as he was refreshing before lunch...
"HARDY!! HARDY!!"
Hardy jumped out of his skin when the lion barged in the bathroom.
"What?! What?!"
Hardy felt a bit of relief when he saw that the lion looked ecstatic, but surprised at the suddenness of this change, or the fact that the lion wasn't wearing his vest.
"Hardy, you remember the time we did a tightrope walker number to get some money?!"
"Yeah, I did the tightrope walking while you just kept yelling "Watch this! Watch this!" safely," snarked the hyena in payback for the fright.
Lippy's smile grew wider.
"Well, Hardy... WATCH THIS!!"
Lippy brandished the back of his right hand.
And Hardy gasped in shock.
For on it was a glowing star-shaped mark.
And before Hardy could ask any question, Lippy began growing.
In barely a few seconds, the normally lanky lion had turned into an obscenely overmuscled freak, his head drowning in the mass of his expanding pecs and traps, and his flexed biceps bulging higher than his head.
"I've got trouble doing what I want to do exactly, but it feels awesome!" exulted the lion. "No wonder it gets you so excited, Hardy!"
"How?!" yelped the hyena. "What happened?!"
"Well..."

Art by Softi: https://twitter.com/softineon
Original here: https://twitter.com/softineon/statu.....23177395625985
Lippy the Lion © Hanna-Barbera