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Joshua's hand wielded fang missed by less than the breadth of a few fingers. Inches, and nothing more. And yet in a battle of this sort inches and seconds might as well have been miles and years.

Joshua and Maximos' strategy, as always were terribly similar in that they were completely opposite. Maximos was defensive, attempting counter after plan, after maneuver. He reveled in the idea of being struck, because in a well fought battle Maximos did not take a scratch unless he wanted it. Of course, against Joshua plans and stratagem were entirely useless. Joshua was a beast, a demon, a creature of instinct and raw brutality. It was clear, that while for Maximos a strong defense was his strongest defense, for Joshua the strongest defense was an even stronger offense.

In turn, that meant that Joshua missing an offensive strike, was a hole in his defense. And Maximos meant to capitalize. Just as quickly as the Shadow retreated, he began to shove off his left. His left kept Nameless in a defensive posture, while his right arm carried the thrust in one fluid motion. From the foot, rolling to the hips, twisting through to the shoulders, across the arm and then...

The the world went red and blue, and purple in some place.

There was a flash of negative red, followed by a wave of purple and then another searing hot blanket of pain. There was absolutely no way of telling how many shards of azure had just punctuated Maximos. He heard a few metallic clangs and rasps against his sword, he felt sharp edges grate against his gauntlet, and saw soft sparks of indigo and violet where the black metal training construct had furrows carved up its length. And then he felt fire, the myriad stings impaling his exposed arm, shoulders, chest and legs. Streaks of blue raced past his face, digging into his cheeks, slicing at his lips.

"Noct damnit Razliek!" Maximos shouted, his voice something between a battle cry and primal sort of roar. The explosive impact threatened to knock the Shadow flat on his back, but he simply would not have it. He did not succumb to the force, he threw himself at it. Recklessly tossing his weight forward, digging the balls of his feet into the ground and fighting against the roiling burn to keep his right arm extended, to force it to continue its stab.

"Why!?" He cried out over the explosion, driving against the pain, against the tearing flesh, snapping his right arm forward. This thrust was no where near close enough to cut. "Why is it always the same!?"

And then, like sand smothering the flames, came the blood. It flowed warm and soft and seeped through countless fresh openings soothing the blaze with its moist comfort. Maximos' voice was harsh, accusatory, one might even imagine he was angered. But his face told an entirely different story, through the beads of blood seeping down the bridge of his nose and the stream of red pouring over and across his eyes, and behind the sheet of crimson sheen that painted his cheeks, there was a row of all to visible pink stained teeth standing out from inside two split lips. Nothing could have killed that grin. And grinning as such, Maximos shouted. "Release!"

And so she did. Sha'yd ever obedient heeded the command of her master. Her blade, a sort of deep maroon, ignited. For a half second it flashed stoplight red, and then...

Boom! The stolen negative energy tainted and swirled with a mixture of Maximos' own was compressed and then violently released in an explosive ball of burgundy, and blood red, all framed by a crackling veins of indigo and plum. The explosion rushed and filled a 5ft orb of space, looking reminiscent of a perfectly round fruit with Sha'yd and Maximos arm acting as the stem, and Razliek hopefully caught somewhere in its core.

What would it do? Maximos had no idea. All he knew was Sha'yd's ability allowed her to swallow various energies, force them to mash together and then spit out very hazardous bastardization of both. Pure negativity, and volatile shadows could not have smashed together to make anything even remotely pleasant.

A thrust and a explosion, a thrust and then another explosion. These fancy tricks while frightening in their own regard would never be enough to beat the other man. And yet, they were so very much fun, and left interesting opportunities in their wake. It was truly terrible how very the same the two were. And yet, utterly and completely entertaining.

Something was wrong, it was a tangible palpable thing visible across every one of Maximos' movements before his eyes even so much as shifted. Teira's assessment was absolutely correct, Maximos and his training duplicates moved in a routine motion, flat and lifeless, none of the customization and variation that was signature in Maximos' fighting style.

But, it was Maximos who controlled his training partners, his own swordsmanship pitted against itself to refine away any imperfections through his own scrutiny and at the price of his own blood. And yet here, he was stale and regimented. Lifeless and yet intense. Every swing was brisker hard, and more vicious than it needed to be. And then...


Before she even spoke, Maximos responded. The sound of rasping steel struck a chord deep in the Shadow and his entire form locked in place. His eyes were hollow, and carried an intense entirely unfitting what should be a joyful moment. Maximos' head turned but slow and focused, as if every minute second of the motion was necessary to keep it in check, to keep it from becoming something else.

"May I, cut in?" And then evenly, Maximos' mismatches eyes fell on her. There was nothing to these eyes, no spark, no energy, no life. Just a pale cold and pervasive death. These very eyes had been the last thing seen by a very many before their inexorable trip into oblivion. It was for that reason that when a dull white light engulfed his right eye, and shined a sort of soulless and pure glow from such hollow depths that a mood struck the room.

An unspoken intensity filled the air with an almost palpable spark. It was the ineffable aura a lion puts off when it stalks the field, scarring away the weak and immediately turning the strong to the defensive. The duplicate training Maximos' one by one came to a stop, and as they stopped they faded into the black. Maximos' eyes never left Teira's, his form never moved even an inch, and by the time the last of the clones had vanished the intensity had grown to the point that the space between the Shadow and the elf felt thick, almost solid. Stifling to breath in and entirely too fat to move in properly.

The stillness stretched on for a small eternity, the sort of thing that left a heart pounding out a heavy rhythm in one chest and then with a flick of his wrist...



"I asked you for only one thing Teira, only one. And I gave you everything. Life. Family. Everything." He wasnt shouting, but he didnt need to be. His words were all so evenly and calmly placed that they carried the icy sting of fresh ice on exposed skin. "Never use the skills I taught you to make anyone else unhappy. Never fight to make anyone unhappy. Was that too much to ask?"



"I raised you with the trappings of a Queen, and was thanked by your constant indecencies, indignities and classlessness." Maximos' fist balled up at his sides, balling into fists so tight the leather of his glove squeaked, and then relaxed so that his fingers hung as lifeless shanks from his palm. "And yet despite it all I gave you more. I threw away the life of one of the greatest goods existence has ever known just to provide you protection."

Understand that I need to...

"And you perverted it, to become some sort of selfish killing monstrosity? Unacceptable." The Shadow said, emotion leaking into his tone like poison, each syllable dripping with a lethal hint venomous disdain. It was about then that the lines and curves of light began to ignite in the stitches spellcrafted into his boots. All curls and shapes like wisps of smoke or flame, all beginning to glow a dark plum. "Unforgivable. I have let you live your life freely as you choose. But as I placed you on this world I am responsible for the damages you cause and the lives you ruin. I am responsible for removing what monstrosity I wrought."

Maximos voice no longer the restrained, frozen anger he was associated with, but a hollow recitation. This was no longer a commentary, it was a sentence. "If this is the path you choose to walk Teiraesia Kos...then your path ends here and now."



"I have cleaned up so many of the messes you have made...so many of the things you've done...but this...now...you've forced my hand. " Maximos' boots gleamed with white outlines and trappings, his right hand balled into a tight fist, crackling like a exposed wire with indigo arcs of essence as his left hand pulled the wrist of his glove tight.

...than to harm the one I love.

"Why...how...where did I go wrong...no. No, the time for talk is over. What..." He breathed in a sharp breath and pursed his lips tight. To anyone who knew the Shadow, the veil of composure seemed all he could do to keep the words from seething through his teeth. Lowering his hand Maximos stepped forward with all the swagger of a man going on a brisk afternoon stroll. His face contorted in a vicious grimace, before splitting as his control slipped and his voice boomed across the all too hollow space.


In a blur of black detailed with streaks of electric indigo glow, Maximos right hand burst forward wrenching the Nameless from its perch in the wood of the gymnasium floor. In the same instant in which Maximos' foot struck the floor it exploded into a burst of violet, imperial blue, and royal purple rocketing the Shadow forward and sending a ripple of thunder rolling through the confined hall and room. Maximos' entire form was bathed in a blurry black swath of motion save of the white line drawn from his starting point forward by his gleaming white eye.

Maximos was a marauding black knight charging against his foe with the very concept of forgiveness banished from his person. There was no room or space for doubt, no hint of regret, and absolutely no giving up until death. Teira had been swung on by Maximos before, she had been hit by him several times. Such was for training, never like this. There was a chasm of difference between any practice swing, and an attack with the unrelenting and undeniable intent to the end ones life.

Maximos' form was caught in the shape of a thrust, his right leg leading with his left braced behind and his sword cocked back and even with his shoulder. Essence poured from the souls of his feet like a water from a hose, glowing brilliant and then fading to dead black tarry streaks in his wake. And when he reached within striking range, his right arm would lash forward with every bit of the speed and viciousness the Shadow was renowned for, intending to impale the person dearest and closest to him straight through the heart and pin her to the wall.



For Teira, it was in that unmistakable instant when every sign screamed to her instincts that this is happening, and is real, that voices whispered gently into her ears. Two familar, and one more familiar than the others. They said...

"No matter how many times this body is broken, you will not be."

"You have yourself and only yourself in the end. "

"We will hold you to all of these words."

"And if you ever fail and give up..."

"...or refuse to rise to the next challenge or the one after..."

"...or falter in defending your existence, or a loved one..."

And in a moment, there was no use for words. Every sentiment that remained could only be communicated in blood, steel, and pain. It was the language of the killer. If Teira meant to join their ranks, she would have to prove she was fluent in it. She would speak her brother's death, or he would writer her own. A few moments more, and fate would see who's end was spelled out across the floor.

Maximos' eyes were steely and sharp, in the ferocity of combat they never blinked. His face never contorted with effort, and his breath by product of much training remained even. It gave the display of an inhuman foe, one who felt nothing, saw everything, and never relented. It was a facade that brought fear, and fear made me weak. And that facade was a lie. Maximos did feel. He felt the weight of his sword, he felt the dull ache of the essence pulsing across his body and to his arm. He felt the thumping beat of his heart counting seconds away like tiny lifetimes. In a real battle, a single second could mean the very end of a life time. He felt the burden of his actions, he felt the resolve that drove him unshakably forward.

His blade lashed forward, a spear of black. And suddenly where Teira was meant to be she suddenly was not. She did not miss a beat, were it not for the circumstances he would have been proud. And yet the Shadow could not afford to be a slouch either. Teira side stepped, and as she did, Maximos immediately swung his left leg forward to fill the space where her feet had been just moments ago. As he had been skating on jets and not running, the arch of the sudden motion swerved his entire body around without wasting time only halting and restarting his momentum. A spray of lavender technicolor splashed in a tight curve behind Maximos' enchanted boots only to quickly simmer into black wet dry splotches, leaving his boots glowing a dull blue.

Teira would sidestep and find Maximos still very much facing her. And yet, her attack rang completely true. Despite his quick turn, Maximos' still crackling arm was still extended and while he might have been able to turn his thrust into a swipe Teira struck with precision timing and force. The Nameless was not only deflected, it was fiercely knocked clean out of Maximos' hands!

"I gave you breath..." Was all the Shadow was able to say as her second blade sliced across his thigh. Before the Nameless even clanged to the ground, Maximos' leg gave out, dropping the Shadow to one knee. His eyes never leaving hers, never surrendering to the flash of red hot pain.

It seemed, in an instant that Maximos anger had gotten the best of him. Or perhaps he had underestimated his foe. For a heartbeat he was prostrate, prone and genuflect before her. But in after a heartbeat more something was missing. Though the blade had fallen, there was no clang.

I know I'd better stop trying.

By Maximos' calculation, Teira had slashed, once and twice. Both strikes moved her swords from an closed and crossed position to an open and wide stance. Heartbeats, seconds. There was a time he would have given her his life, now he could not afford to give her even a moment. Her midsection was open, and it was exactly there that Maximos' right fist crashed forward, aiming to punch the elf full on in the solar plexus.

Maximos' arm for a moment was an artists stylized caricature of an arm. Its edges emboldened, and the natural shadows that seeped in the folds of his sleeves intensified. Every sparking line of plum and indigo essence came to a sudden stop...and then impact. At the point of impact, or at the point where the impact should have been was a small explosion no bigger than a beach ball of a grape-ish sort of foggy light with veins of black arching violently through it, though . Its aim was to serve as a second impact following the first driving the hit brutally forward, winding some opponents, and sending others backwards off their feet. It was a Shadow Punch.

More specifically, he meant it to crush the air from her lungs, winding her, and with any luck momentarily stunning her while bringing force to the words that followed.



"...I will take it away." Maximos was leaning forward on his injured leg, pressing his weight into the ball of his right foot. His stance looked less like a kneel, and more like a runner's stance. And then in the wake of his Shadow Punch, Maximos was running. Or rather, jetting forward trailed by a blue fountain of essence which quickly faded to cold cobalt and black. A single spurt to launch the Shadow forward in what might seem an immediate collision course but, before he ever impacted Teira, there was a flash of black steel. Maximos hadnt really dropped his sword, so much as he had let it go and caught it with is left. And now his left hand thrust forward aiming to close what distance there was.

[.Fireproof.]

Was there a pause? A moment of hesitation in what should been a brutal onslaught? Yes. For more than the seconds it should have taken for Maximos to burst through the wall of violet and black there was stillness save for the waver and flicker of the shadow flames themselves. And then from the stillness came a voice.

Here's a chance to show you how I feel.

"Is this how you thank me Teira?" Shadowflame had a sound, it burned as it always did and such a sound would have filled the room and drowned out all else. But Teira had ears better than that. She would be able to hear the sound through the flames, the steady clop of hard leather on solid wood in an unmistakable march.



"Is it so easy to kill the one you love? I suppose, this your true self? This is what you seek to defend? Unforgiveable. I see then..." Closer, and closer, the footsteps echoed, resounding across the room, everywhere and anywhere at once broadcast across the shadows. A trick meant solely for a specific set of ears. Maximos was everywhere, Maximos was no where. His voice as emotionlessly chilling as ever.

Yet, her shadow flames continued to burn. They were a focused ability, they could not simply burn because their was kindling, they had to burn because their target burned. It was the only kindling that would work. "...The girl I knew is dead."

And then there was it. A shape, moving inside the flame. It could have very easily been a trick, a silhouetted outline of a man stepping forward in cue with the stalking footfalls. "There is no need to make her memory suffer."



The figure reached the edge of the wall of flames, both of his hands on the hilt of the sword angled in front of him. Its hilt at his hips with its blade extending upwards. Licks of purple rolled over his shoulders and down his arms, flame licked at his legs and burned across his back in a vividly bright violet outline that cut his black shape out from the darker flames behind him. "Put your weapons down, and submit to your fate."



A sword, a shape it was all so easy to mimic with just basic shadow play. Something shuffled to her right, something clanged to the floor noisily to her right. "I taste your fear. You have to know you cannot win."



The figure moved, cleanly, evenly lifting the sword straight up and over his head as if preparing for a downward chop. Something was wrong. To the keen eye, flecks and ashes fell from the man in the fire but he did not seem pained. He was burning, but not properly. Even if his flesh was immune, he should have been naked by now.

"Who was it who gave you those flames little one?" He said evenly, his voice barely above a whisper and yet clearly audible even over the flames.



Shadow flame was a unique thing. It was an emotion given physical form via lunaic shadow magics. But just like fire, at its core it was unique to every individual. It was customized to the burning emotion that spawned it. Teira's vivid lively purples and bottomless black for instance, a tribute to the passion of her soul, to her origins and her design. The passion that drove her to overcome and accomplish with ambition fit for a queen. Maximos was not passionate. He was not lively. He did not raise his voice. He did not shout. He was unresponsive, he was emotionless. As Teira herself said, he was cold.

"No matter how you try." And yet there was no mistaking his anger, not subdued by the emotionless facade but birthing it. Stillness was Maximos' rage. Coldness was his fury. A chilling thing, as ice blue as the cobalt flames that wisped into being around his form like an aura. Blue as the sky at their base and dark azure as any imperial garment at their dancing ends. As the aura rose and roiled over his form, Teira's violet flames were pushed back and even it seemed, voraciously eaten.



The very moment his flames exploded outward, Maximos burst forward through them trailing white fluid essence from newly charged his jet boots as he careened towards Teira again. His body a rush of black and blues, his teeth gritted and seething out gouts of a dark sapphire flame that lashed against his ashy cheeks. Maximos was burned, that was clear to see, a few first degree splotches of red, a few patches of ash black clothes and charred skin where a second degree burn might have bit. Nothing as serious as his moments of bathing in her rage should have been.

That was it then, Maximos' steps were steady because he was focusing. His motion slow, because this simply was not his chosen element. In the end, it seemed Maximos had every bit of the power he spoke of, but that was a lie. Fire versus fire only begot more fire, more things to burn. But when a fire could only burn one thing, and that one thing was insistent on burning back the flames could not mesh not truly being of the same element, and their kindling was lost. Shadowflame directly against Shadowflame, meant a nullification of the flames involved. Maximos' only advantage was knowledge and that he had stolen the time to build up more firepower for his blast. Teira's flames ate him, but could not penetrate because of flames Maximos was building. A protection he had now forsaken for the sake of a more vicious offense.

His blade was held low and to his right, its hilt even with his hip. His feet in the same position as earlier, with his right leading and his left skating behind. In his wake his flames peeled off the gymnasium floor scorching after him like hungry tendrils. The tendrils overlapped and curled one over another, braiding together an melding into a flaming pillar of cobalt colored blaze, with its head molded into the shape of a screaming skull.



Slash and burn. The moment he crossed into the striking range of his 4ft long blade, he would swipe diagonally upwards from right to left carrying an icy blue serpentine pillar of fire forward in the wake of his sword.

Thats right, he said it. A most vicious set word from a man who Teira likely imagined would never speak it. He couldnt have. There was no way he could have meant it. And yet, the cold fury painted across his face and the heat of his ice blue flames bearing down made the sentiment undeniable.

And the span of his breadth Maximos bent both his knees and jumped, the boots reacted in the only way they could launching the furious shadow straight upwards to meet Teira in mid air. Maximos' sword scored a gash in the ground as he bent and then sliced straight up, in cue the serpentine pillar of fire kissed the ground and then raced up behind the Shadow following his sword hungrily, the teeth of its blazing skull gnashing. The Arian slashed and the elf slashed to meet it.

"Stop pretending--" Maximos exclaimed exactly as the Nameless crashed viciously against Heartless, immediately spewing a fountain of black and violet sparks from the angry point where their bladed edges kissed in a shaky X. In the moment the blades clashed Maximos' boots cut out, the spellcrafted lines in their leather sizzling with deep purple essence and then fading black. "--you actually have a soul!"

Up close, all of Maximos' injuries were clear and visible. A good portion of his face was splotched with pink and red which stood out sickly against his deathly pale skin. Down his neck and across his arms his flesh lacked the pale or even reddened evenness of a gentle dance with flame, instead the skin was lumpy and snow white while splotched with pink and red from where Maximos epidermis had been burned away leaving only sensitive and naked flesh beneath. He had no blisters, the heat was far too intense for that, instead there were large splotches of black where his skin had puckered to form a blister of fragile skin which had almost immediately popped under the heat and scorched to ash. The wounds bled red, and black and glistened against his and her colliding violet and sapphire lights. And yet, even despite the literal cracks in his face from where his skin tore against the strain of his gritted teeth, and the trails of blood and ash black along his cheeks where his own flames poured, Maximos' eyes shone with nothing short of absolution. He had to be in pain. But pain could not stop him. He could not let it stop him. Teira was right, he could have avoided all these burns if he just stopped. But she didnt understand, maybe in the still second when she saw the way his eyes were peeled open as wide as possible locked on her, looking into and through her.



...And then came the fire, the roaring torrent of blue rushed straight up, but as Maximos had not completed his slash the fire did not complete its curve. Instead snapped open its hungry maw and arched up, over and past Teira. Not swallowing her, so much as brushing painfully by.

"Fight me!" Maximos shouted back through scorched lips and steadily blackening teeth. Each breath spawning a puff or gust of blue flame. The azure light poured through the cracks in his cheeks, and yet Maximos did not stop. His clothes peeled and flaked away like so many midnight stained snowflakes under the the unrelenting waves of her flame. Underneath the black attire were yet more burns, more marks, more wounds and yet still new ones continued to form, bubbling his skin and the popping in a spray of ash leaving a reddened pool lined with black. His clothes attempted to mend themselves and hide the true extent of his injury, but were losing the fight. Teira had wielded her flames wonderfully. As Maximos was losing the fight against gravity, Teira's weight pressing down on him. "FIGHT ME LIKE THE MONSTER YOU WISH TO BE!"

And they fell, Maximos' blade trapped against hers. Teira's knee's slammed against his chest driving him back downwards under his weight while she rest safely within the effective swinging range of his sword. His arms had no where to move, no room to make the blade anything more than an annoyance. Maximos' eyes never left hers, never lost their ferocity, never faltered.

Exactly as planned Teira stabbed straight downwards. In the same moment, Maximos tossed away his sword, gripping her left arm with his right arm reached upwards, attempting to stretch across the length of her torso with a black, red, and blue scorched hand and grab desperately at her neck.

And then impact. No one falls like a feather. Impacts are hard, brutal things. Teira meant to bring him down and she did. Maximos' right arm still grabbed her left, his left hand raised somewhere around the height of her face but it no long writhed and reached so horribly. His eyes were open wide, still filled with every bit of the intensity of seconds before but now laced with some sort of terrible shock. They had shared few moments of genuine surprise, and this was it in its truest form.

She would, as promised feel the soft resistance and then the steady wet give of his flesh. She would be able to see drops of red stain Hearteater's pristine blade. She would even be able to feel Maximos' muscles attempting to contract around its super-fine edge. And then in, one horrible moment as Maximos' hand moved away, she would realize something had gone terribly wrong.

Something must have happened, it had to be the moment they fell. Something shook them, something jarred them Through the intensely sensitive edge of her new killing tool, Teira would be able to feel the steady thrum of a heartbeat. And in through the space opened as Maximos' hand moved away she would be able to see precisely where Hearteater had sliced effortlessly into Maximos' jugular, and bit ever so slightly into his wind pipe.

By then, Maximos surprised faded into laughter. It was a wet gurgle of a laugh, and with each laugh more blood poured from the open wound, squirting an inch or so up the edge Hearteater's blade. And the red blade was laughing. Its fiery cackle only too familar and echoing in cue with Maximos' own. She didnt mean this! Or did she? Did the blade aim itself? Did it force her hand?!

"...thats good." Said Maximos, in a voice like blowing bubbles in chocolate milk, his face split in a grin. His left hand hovered in the space between them. "Kill me. Be true to yourself. Take it!"

Max shouted, spraying life blood from his stained lips all over her pale face, unless she moved. "Take what you deserve..."

Cobalt blue reflected in his black left eye....but it was already too late, left arm snapped to life grabbing her right wrist and squeezing. And if Teira could not get free of the near death grip Maximos right hand had on her arms, then the roaring skeletal maw of the flaming snake that had so narrowly passed her was going to be crashing down and swallowing both of them whole.

Blood oozed between her fingers, warm and wet. Maximos life was spilling out all over her hands. He wasnt shutting up, even through his last words he continued to laugh. His chest shook beneath her knees, a rugged feeling as several ribs, bruised or broken gave way and scraped furrows along his flesh. But he wouldnt stop.

Maximos would not let go, he only squeezed tighter and harder. It seemed even in the face of death his grip would not falter, making one wonder if he would let her go even after death. His eyes stood locked on hers, even as his skin began to grow cold and waxy, even as his eyes began to gloss he beamed forward fiery determination. Was he a slave? Or was he a master? Was he out of control, or has forty years of life left his control absolute? Once the flames hit the argument was moot.

The struck, and like light hitting a prism the pillar scattered outward into condensed individual streams. The streams of blazing blue sailed outwards and just as the core torrent expunged itself, the individual tendrils struck. Not all at once, but one after there, impacting, burning, rolling off and just as one blazing length of flame expired them came the next and the next and the next. By the time the last blast slammed viciously into the elf's back the first had remainder had reformed into the burning skull snake and was all but ready to slam into her again.

"Take the kill! This is what you wanted!" Maximos screamed, his voice ragged and roaring over the flame. How much wing did she have? How much stamina did she have to support her flames? The Shadow shook her arms violently, as indigo sparks and arching lines of power snapped down his limbs and across his chest.

"You have the power now! Slay your foe!" The snake smashed against her again, and the lashing coils wreathed outwards, and immediately spiraled inwards. One length braiding beside another length and beside another. Never touching by dancing beside each other toward a single impact point, a V at the head of the dance. It was a drill aimed at the soft spot between her wings. Or what was left of her wings.

"You have nothing else!" Maximos' body was alive with blood, pain, and purple and blue lights. They danced across him as if he were plugged into some sort of macabre exposed outlet. Teira had taken the Shadow Punch. She had trained with Maximos before, he knew what sparks meant. The visage of electricity was the shaky moment before an explosion. If Maximos entire body was sparking, the man meant to be a bomb.

"Your sentimentality holds no value. Take him, or we will take you."



"We offer you more than this burned sack of meat ever would."



Teira had every option in the world of running away, of being truly selfish. She knew Maximos could have killed her outright in this position, he could have killed them both. If he did she would never grow, never have power. And if by chance she did survive she had to know that Maximos would not stop chasing her. The Brother's pulse life in her veins, they did not force her to move and yet they filled her in a flash with so much power that it felt as if with a flick she could have moved a mountain. It would have been so easy.



...And there was nothing. No more pain, no more fire, no more lights of any color. She could no longer see Maximos' suffering face or his blistering wounds, she could not hear his words or the brothers or anything save for a moment of absolute stillness. For a second, the world was gone.

She had fallen against him, there was ash, there was wetness, and yet above that there was the faintest smell of soap. Bath soap. Then something grabbed her. Hard and firm, coiling around and across her back and pressing her down, crushing her against him.

"Its over..." His voice said, just barely above a whisper. "...its enough."

The malice was gone, the hate, the rage, vanished as if they never were. Maximos crushed her to him, without any mind for his or her injuries, and there was nothing in the gesture but the desire to have her close to him. "...its enough."

He whispered and craned forward to kiss her forehead with dried and cracked lips. His wounds had all begun to bleed black in thick tarry clumps, the substance felt like blood but tackier and robbed the injuries of the putrid smell of burned flesh.

Maximos had handed her a set of the darkest and deadliest things in the collection, he couldnt heart what they said to her, but he heard every word she said back. Selfishness. Blood lust. If anyone knew the seductive nature of power and blood it was Maximos. He knew how far it could drive a person, he knew what it could turn a young impressionable individual into. And while he knew and loved Teira, he knew the origins of her soul. He knew as a Reaper the stains a past life leave on the next. Willpower was in her destiny, but strength...against the darkness? Amidst all the memories of holding the girl atop him, he remembered finding another woman with her face in the darkness before submitted and she faded away into. "...I had to know..."

"I gave you hell, little one." Maximos said, his arms finally steadily releasing their bear hold. "I had to know you could wield it."

This woman was incorrigible.

He burned her, he beat her, he tried to kill her, he even tried to get her to kill him! And yet there she was, not crying though her face said she wanted to...and kissing him. In truth the fire had left the entire area in a hodge podge of super sensitive painful areas and nerveless numbness. The blackness congealed over the injury was meant to staunch bleeding and blanketed over both areas so that mixed with the above made the kiss became a sharp painful sting, overlapped with an tickling tingling. A kiss, that was her response. Unbelievable.

Oh but then it got worse! There was the all too familiar pressure, pain, and then pull of something piercing his skin and sewing it together. She was Shadow Stitching him! Nothing. He had done her a horrible turn, and nothing. Max nearly stopped speaking right here and there, but he managed to get the words out and finished them with something of a defeated sigh. Where was the rage? The fear? The doubt? The quivering lips and blood and tear stained face? She was absolutely impossible. Was it trust that protected her? Was it love? Whatever it was that kept her together in the face of something so terrible, Maximos was thankful for it. Though, at the same time it was a massive headac--

--THONK! She not only smashed her head into his, but by via the force of impact slammed his head back into the wooden floor where it immediately bounced back up and then fell back against the floor again. The pain was dry and thick and rolled in after the impact in the form of a heavy wave that spread steadily across the Shadow's skull like heat across a pan placed on a stove. It hurt so bad it made his teeth ache. And just about then Maximos started laughing. Deep, hard, belly laughs that echoed across the room and paid absolutely no heed to whatever number of broken or bruised ribs he had.

"I'm SO glad you're breathing, Because NOW--
I'm going to KILL YOU!" And just like that his laughter stopped. His breathing became still, and from her point of view the profile of Maximos' burned face was suddenly very serious. His brow was furrowed, his lips pressed in a firm black and ashen line. Even his arms and shoulders became rigid and tense. And then in a very steady, and very purposeful voice, he replied. "Is that so?"



And then all at once Maximos sprung into action with every bit of the fluid grace and strength that a man of his level of injury and exhaustion should not have been able to muster. His arm, moment ago laced around her as he rest on his shoulder snapped into motion. A ragged and burned hand tightly snatching her nearest arm and pinning it behind and beneath her. Maximos rolled and spun, grabbing her other arm viciously and pulling it across her chest, pinning it down by her hip.

The Shadow's reacted without warning or mercy. For Teira it was the unsettling moment when you know something terrible is going to happen, but have no power to stop it or no understanding of exactly what will happen. Hands, lengths and tendrils flung up around either side of her in an instant aiming to hold her limbs in place, tiny hands working terribly in tandem.

Maximos had flipped the script, the Shadow straddled her instead! His hips just over her belly to render her legs mostly inert. There was fire in his gaze as he looked down at her, white rose in a wispy plume from his right eye and what little shadowed light there was remaining in the room danced across his stained white teeth menacingly.

"I'd like to see you try!" Maximos said in a voice every bit as dark and slippery as the arms binding her. His hands quickly jerked free of hers leaving the darkness to carry out his bidding, his fingers curled inwards like the deadly claws of some beast and then...

...He began to tickle her. It had occurred to him that while in her Teira Mark I body her senses were dulled as his were. She had never actually be tickled. With the Teira Mark II, she was able to breath and feel and touch and experience so much more. The full onslaught that was a tickle fight was now upon her, save absolutely nothing. It was every big brothers Noct-given right to abusively tickle his youngers.

The abuse had begun. And the abuse would continue on, even despite burns, cuts, injuries or whatever accidental splashes of red or black made the jovial moment seem absolutely macabre. Maximos absolutely no intentions of stopping, unless he was defeated and it went without saying that as Maximos had already employed the shadows he planned to cheat and thoroughly. That was until...

"Ahem." Someone standing by the gymnasium door cleared their throat. Someone wearing a black vest and pants as well as a white dress shirt, and with gray hair tied back in a small pony tail behind his head. A man sporting a monocle, and white gloves. A man who looked down at the Master and Lady on the floor like the children they were. A man who had no actual reason to clear his throat. A man named Walter Worthington the 3rd.

Maximos' head snapped to Walter and he Maximos froze in mid motion like a kid caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Walter's face was its usual unreadable and collected mask. "Pardon my...intrusion Sir, Madam. A fresh compliment of pastries and tea has been served in the dining room. "

"Yes, well." Maximos said, and it was clear if he could have blushed in the moment he would have. Instead he attempted to right his hair and pat his chest searching for his glasses in an attempt to make himself look as formal as possible before saying. "Thank you Walter."

And the butler departed, leaving Maximos to look down at Teira with a wide grin speaking nothing of the assault of moments. "Shall we?"

Ah, the garden. The days had been quiet on Shadow Island, Maximos spent most of his time either in training or out at the shop leaving little to go disastrously wrong on the island proper. On this sort of day, when the sun was bright and the wind was stiff but cool, Walter could always be found tending the garden.

As Ryugi approached he would first hear a grumble and then a growl. There was a snap like a whip, and then another more shrill growl and some more grumbles. These were not normal garden sounds. And then, above the growl although not louder than it, came a voice. A voice spiced with age, and yet not elderly weakness. A wise and calm voice, that spoke in a manner befitting a parent speaking to a very young child.

"Annabelle." The voice said, in a reprimanding tone. "You know better than to treat your brother that way. Apologize."

Another rumbling sound could be heard, followed by a soft mumble of something like words but, but if words were constructed from chirps and gurgles, instead of actual letters. And then another whip crack, and another another even more shrill cry than the last. "Artemis, that is simply unacceptable behavior. Your sister was apologizing. If you can not learn to peacefully co-exist with each other then I'll be absolutely forced to clip your vines and keep you in those bowls."

By now, Ryugi would have a visual of both of the Angaran Creep Vine's, both in large bowls the size of beach balls and leaning as away each other as they could manage with their viny limbs coiled around themselves, both in silent fear of the man who stood between them holding a large pair of pruning sheers. The man did not look threatening, with his black apron or his dark gray gardening gloves, but the Vine's dare not push his limitations it seemed.

"There there," Walter said, pulling a bag of some sort of substance from the pocket of his apron and sprinkling it light in each Creep Vine's respective bowl. "Eat up and behave, soon you'll be acclimated to the soil, and you can join the rest of the garden."

The stately butler had not so much as inclined his head in Ryugi's direction, and yet as he finished dispensing the plant food he very politely said. "Hello Mr. Kazamaru."

And then turned, placing the small bag back his apron and immediately removing his gardening gloves to don a pair of fresh white serving gloves. "This is quite the surprise! Its a pleasure seeing you."

Walter bowed, the sort of bow fit for a king or a queen. "What brings you all the way to Shadow Island?"