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It was like stepping into old shoes, and Tomorrow as always, played directly into the hand dealt him. Maximos remembered this dance, and the old rhythm that came with it. Tomorrow attacked and committed himself to an image in his mind of what would come, Maximos attacked and presented only an image with a thousand variables that could follow. It left one man constantly available and the other committed.

But there was more in this encounter than fight tactics and strategies. And yet first, the foremost layer of this meeting had to be handled and steel and bone and flesh must clash.

Max charged, headlong and without a seeming concern for his own well being. Tomorrow's arm lunged out like a bolt of vicious thunder. And the shadow faltered. He was mid step when, as appearances would tell it, his right leg gave out. The shadow dropped to a knee, his skirt trailing the ground around him, and yet on the polished marble floor Maximos did not come to a stop. He slid.

His left arm came up, lifting the shield up over his shoulder and pressing it under Tomorrow's assaulting arm just beneath the elbow joint. Like a brace. It meant that while Tomorrow could drop his arm, or attempt another form of assault it would take time. And for this exact moment, the entirety of the man's flank was open. Maximos capitalized. He swung his sword in a quick arc, pivoting on his downed knee to slash across Tomorrow's shin. The likeliness of the other man stopping on a dime and turning back was rather low.

In Maximos' wake shadows could be seen staining the floor like black paint and then fading like fog on a glass.

"Your wrong." Maximos said, as his slid came to a stop behind Tomorrow, and brought his shield up in defense. "This was where I began. The first pieces of equipment I ever held. This is something you do not know."

He stood. Shield raised in front of himself and sword poised even with his shoulder just behind the shield with its tip resting on top of the kite edge. "You were asked not to judge..."

There was a certain sharpness in Maximos’ eyes the moment Tomorrow touched the hammer. It was like a silent trigger, it touched something deep in the Shadow and made his instincts spring to life, his lungs pulled in deeper, quicker breaths, his eyes dared not turn away, his heart began to race and then…Tomorrow put it down.

They didn’t need words to communicate. By the look in his eye, by the way he paced around like a stalking predator, Maximos understood what the other man was thinking, and saying. And that was the point this, between Maximos and Tomorrow a story had been written in combat and in blood through actions not words. And that was the way it had to be written now.

“I know what your thinking. ” Maximos said, no pride in his tone just a quiet resoluteness. “The Champion of the Lightwatcher is given weapons of our finest craft, and I entered with nothing but cloth. The trial, is a test of –”

Tomorrow was rushing, the fight racing on. Quiet moments between clashes could be filled with words, but the core message was in the violence. The blood, pulsing through ones veins. Instincts, that could only speak in truth. And truths that needed to be explained, no felt.

Tomorrow swung out his fist, and with practiced precision the darksteel shield was placed in its path, though the two would not connect. The moment Tomorrow’s fist stopped, Maximos knew he was open and pain was to follow. But there was no avoiding it. It was not that Maximos fell for the fake so much as he could risk it being or becoming real so he had no choice but to commit to defense. One clean blow like that could devastate him.

The Aesir’s leg swept Maximos’ feet clean off the ground. It was not like trying to avoid a slashing sword or step out of the path of a sweeping staff. Dodging Tomorrow’s leg was like trying to avoid a tree trunk rolling at you with you the speed of a kick. And then, before gravity could carry the Shadow to the floor, Tomorrow’s fist came again. Maximos did all he could do. Sword and shield he braced both arms behind the shield and held it in front of his chest. The impact sound was something like a gong, reverberations traveled across the metal plate and through the Shadow’s arm and could be felt as far in as his teeth.

Tomorrow had all the strength to shatter a piece of metal the size and thickness of what Maximos was holding, or at the very least dent it. But the shield did not budge an inch. His massive fist crashed into the sword and cross marking on its face, and from that impact point splintered out a thousand small engravings. Like cracks only these were not breaks, they were symbols, shapes and arcane runic designs etched across the shields surface in tiny text. All at once these symbols ignited like indigo flame, and then inertia carried through the force of Tomorrow’s hit, and sent Maximos soaring backwards like a punched beach ball, at which point they vanished leaving only the polished black metal.

Maximos flew, farther and easier than a full blooded man of his stature should have been able to, his body was bunched tight behind the shape of the shield and then with a hollow thud his back slammed into the marble floor, and he slid, ending sprawled on his side at the very edge of the pews. The sound of rolling cloth, clanging steel echoing in the moonlight chamber. Maximos pushed the point of his sword into the ground and used it as crutch to work his way to his feet. He spoke, but drew no breath, he did not infact even seem winded. “– Faith.”

He spoke the word as if it were a command and not a statement. It was a solid and tangible thing from which the steel in Maximos’ voice stemmed. And as he spoke it, the Shadow’s responded. The thin layer of leather-esque black covering his body seemed to move and swirl. Its edges became rigid and hard. At its shoulders Tomorrow would be able to see distinct spiked protrusions, the armor was no longer flat or smooth, but had bevels in it and distinction. It looked very much like chain or perhaps even scale. “My faith IS my shield, my sword IS his will. It is with these tools alone I had to measure myself against the light. Loricatus et Gladius ex Patronus Nox.”

Tomorrow had likely begun to notice things. Maximos’ sudden extreme light weight, the way he did not seem to take a breath before any of his words, and the way he seemed less than pained by what was a very successful attack. He had seen Maximos like this, he had fought him like this a very many times, when he was not just wielding shadow but of Shadow. But what Maximos said next seemed to push the issue damn near to the suicidal. And yet, he had faith.

Maximos lift his sword an aimed it at the overturned weapons table and more specifically the discarded war hammer and he spoke with a certain level of power in his voice. “Pick that back up, John. Come at me in earnest, please do not insult me with anything less.”

That was the thing about memories. They never play out exactly as we remember, and it all seems so much faster when its being lived than when it is being recalled.

But...it was all so familiar. And while he had chosen to act out his own part in the memory rather than provide an illusion, Maximos still fight a tightness in his phantom gut. He knew how this would end. It was all playing out the same.

Tomorrow was power. The Human Dynamo, the Thunder God, and it showed. Zig zag bolts of blue and white leaped off his body, the supercharged the area with a palpable life, and fury. It was as if the very air was alive and had set its violent sights on Maximos. And then Tomorrow began to charge, and Maximos ran to meet him.

His shield was raised high, his sword trailed behind it drawing a black swath in the air and began to pulse with fissures and runic cracks of indigo and violet. The other man did this, the man from Maximos' true trial so long ago. He called the light down to illuminate these Shadow Lands, he scared the crowd, shuddered the ground and then charged with holy fury...it would turn out the same.

There was a sound like a gong being rung in the middle of a long empty hall. It was powerful and reverberated through the halls, making some people cover their ears and others gasp in shock. Maximos did not try and stop the hammer, he angled his shield just enough to alter its swing into a glancing blow. Again, runic shapes sprung to life like cracks a cross the shield and just as quickly sealed. The shield was unbreakable so long as Maximos' faith, the core of his being, the purpose for this trial, was solid.

But Tomorrow was not done he was coming around again. Max took advantage of the moment, dropped his stance just slightly, leaning in and swinging his sword horizontally, aiming to slice across the other man's midsection with the fury of the Shadowfather. At the same time he brought his shield up, so that its center was even with his head so as to whether a second blow.

But he didnt.

Tomorrow would see his Warhammer come down, strike the shield and shatter it like so much stained glass. At the same time, he would see a jet black sword pierce through his stomach. And then his hammer continued right on through the complete lack of defense and slammed into the side of Maximos' head quite literally popping it like a gourd. Black sprayed every in thick gore filled chunks. Half of a pale lower jaw a few white teeth, and a fountain of black ooze was all that remained.

Maximos' half headless body fell forward, limp, forcing the gushing ichor to spray all over Tomorrow's face. And as the inky substance came over his vision, the vision faded. The scene quite literally vanished. The smell, the sound, the feel of the black was gone replaced by a wash of cold that filled his every perception, and then Maximos' ethereal voice saying.

"I never really had that much faith." And all at once, the cold vanished and the scene continued, it seemed right where it left off. Tomorrow's arm was finishing a swing, black blood was spewing all over him and a half headless shadow form was falling to the ground. But it wasnt Maximos.

This was not the cathedral. It seemed now that Tomorrow was standing before the edge of a forest, literally twenty to thirty feet from the tree line. On either side of him were men who looked very much like him, all large, blonde, blue eyed, all dressed in white and gold armor, and all wielding white steel weapons that glowed and shimmered in the sunlight. The black blood was literally seared off his arm and vanished into dust seconds after touching it. And then a large hand landed on his shoulder, a man in white and gold full plate armor rode up beside him on a large white horse. The man's face was hidden beneath his helm but the golden glow of his eyes was more than visible through the slit in the armor.

"Very good Johnathan." He said, with a powerful sort of charismatic voice, made to lead thousands. "The creatures of the Lord of Nightmare live in these woods, an abomination to all things civil, moral and human. They have corrupted these islands! We shall destroy them in the name of the Lightwatcher. Look!"

Quickly the man pointed toward the treeline. It seemed natural at first, a large group of trees should cast a shadow over the forest below them. It was not until one really looked that they realized that past the first ten or so feet the shadows in the forest were too thick to see through. They were a veritable wall of black. And from this wall came figures, shapes at first, which coalesced into the form of men in armor and wielding weapons. All of which were black, and all of which Tomorrow would recognize as he had just fought Maximos while he wore the exact same sort of armor. Though, Maximos was not among this crowd.

"To arms!" Cried out the man beside Tomorrow, before snapping the reins of his horse and galloping off at the encroaching shadow warriors. "For the Lightwatcher!"

The army at either side of Tomorrow raced forward without a moments hesitation. As did the shadows, they moved with fluidity and speed, the sort of which the Aesir was likely used to seeing Maximos move with. And in seconds war had broken out, steel clashing, men crying out, this was a war John was expected to be participating. And as three shadow warriors slithered through the crowd racing straight for him wielding long swords, it seemed his participation was not optional.

"Liandros Mercine Dias!" Cried out the first shadow warrior, he placed both of his hands together gripping some invisible object, and from the swirling black either game a long sword, it quite literally formed out of seemingly nothing.

"Kialas Divonus Borias!" Shouted the second, mere moments after the first, and the process repeated itself, another sword, another Shadow Warrior ready for the kill.

"Naivara ExLilian Fet!" A final shout, a third set of weapons and now all three warriors bore down on Tomorrow. No mercy in their eyes. No hesitation in their movements. Each warrior wielded his weapon with practiced grace and style, and yet while not the sort of style the Aesir may have been accustomed to Maximos wielding they were yet still not to be taken lightly.

The closer they came, the more detail their appearance was. Or rather, it was that much clearer to see how little detail their appearance held. They all had pale skin, dark hair and eyes, but the finer details that truly make a face were non-descript and bland. Their lips did not so much move, as open and sound escaped. Their jaws and cheeks were all of the same shape, as if cut from the same mold, or perhaps as if sculpted from the same example. They looked alot like Maximos did when Johnathan first mate him, pale, and a bit inhuman only far far more so. And as they roared and raced into battle, it was Maximos' voice that echoed faintly from nowhere.

"Those are not magic words...we did not name our weapons." Maximos said, he was nowhere to be seen but his whispered voice still pierced above the shouts. "Those are the names of their fallen, loved ones lost to this war...the reason they fight...the reason they will not back down..."

And then, just like that, the time for talk was over. It was a co-ordinated three point attack, two Shadow Warrior darted to either side of Tomorrow aiming to slice across his midsection and effectively scissor him while the third leapt a clean six feet into the air and brought his sword straight down in an overhead chop meant to cleave the armored hammer wielding man's head in two.

These were Shadow Warriors. They would have fought until their last breath, without a doubt, they would kill without remorse, they would defend their homes and families.

And yet, poorly shadowcrafted, with hollow bodies of darkness and magic and placed against pillars of light and steel and hate, these men truly were Shadow Warriors, in the truest meaning of the word. The shadow of a warrior. For all their will, they were like toy soldiers before something as solid and ferocious as Tomorrow. And like toy soldiers they fell.

Those unlucky enough to suffer the blow of the hammer, all crumbled the same way. Their bodies cracked and shattered like so much plywood spilling globs and streams of black ichor onto the floor. Both men fell to either side of Tomorrow with their forms quite literally ruined in shards and slivers across the grass. The final, airborne warrior was the luckiest. Tomorrow struck him with light. It pierced his chest as easily as paper, the Aesir would be able to see the white glow dart across his form like burning hot veins and then in one blast of black he was completely gone. Soot and ash fell on the tall blonde man.

Of course, it was about them he might hear the grunts and groans of pain. His first two victims may have been mortally wounded, but as he likely knew from dealings with an earlier version of Maximos, these wounds were never mortal. Both men were broken and pathetic on the ground, and agonizing as their minds processed pain for forms that felt none and trapped them in ruined and torturous bodies. And then...

KRAKOOM!

Light blazed across the field, washing over Tomorrow like so much warm water and dissolving both Shadow Warriors into nothing. A voice called out from beside him, mounted atop his large white horse in golden full plate, his arm yet still extended and pulsing with a holy white glow. "Very good again Johnathan! Your hatred for the shadow beasts rivals my own! But you've got to be more thorough, even one still moving is a slight against our lord!"

The large man pulled back on the reigns letting his horse rear up and let out a fearsome cry, gathering the attention of the other sons of Luminous in the area. "We crush the Shadow were it dwells! Charge my brethren! Leave none alive!"

And without another word, the warriors in white and plate rushed the tree line, vanishing into the darkness. By now it was likely clear this was less of a war, and more of a massacre. It was also likely clear what was expected of Tomorrow next.

Yes, he would kill.

Past the line of trees was pitch darkness, and yet even that was nothing against the darkness the Sons of Luminous would bring. Their very presence brought a blinding light, and like any light cast into the shadow, the Shadowlanders would be scattered. And shattered. And slain.

There werent many Shadow Warriors, hidden behind the edge of the territory but what men their were, were dispatched all too easily. And then the Light advanced. After the Warriors, were huts, and tents, and women, and children. And Tomorrow would kill those two. Even should he order his limbs to stop, he would not. He could not. The events would play out. Small pale skinned children huddled in corners, mannequin-esque women throwing themselves on their offspring, all they met were hunted and killed like pests. Very few screamed. Some simply did not have the chance. Others simply had no learned shadowcraft even to manifest a voice and died in horrible silence. There was no challenge in this, in truth, it was much like the Sons of Luminous were mean children smashing through a cardboard world, destroying everything they saw just because they could.

And in truth, thats what they were. Luminous exacting his vengeance on his younger brother for daring to put for these things on his world. Of course, that information had yet to be shared with Tomorrow who simply killed. And killed. The General on his white horse gave commands, and the men followed. This was a travesty of the highest order, and happened a very long time ago. People, cultures, races to this very day fear and hate the darkness and yet no one seems to ever ask why...this could have been reason for a lifetime of vengeance, but the truth here was that even these events were not justice enough for what was to come.

Maximos had not brought Tomorrow here to mock his bloodlust or show off tragedy, he brought him here for truth. And truth was that while the Shadowlanders should have died here, and now, forever...they didnt.

Something went wrong. And it started with a simple argument.

The ruination of a hundred families happened in silence, and yet here and now as Tomorrow advanced he would hear screams. Shouts, muffled by the walls of a small hut that was just slightly better constructed than the huts around it. The Knight General on his white horse would point at the hut in question and give an order, that Johnathan himself should have the honor and pleasure of destroying this one. And as he approached, the voices grew clearer and louder.

The flap of the hut suddenly swung open, with Johnathan some hundred paces away. A man was visible in the doorway with his back to the Aesir, and he was shouting.

"You selfish fleebing woman dont you understand?!" He shouted and stabbed a finger inside the tent. "The Lightwatchers men will breach our lines at any minute now! I have to fight! For our future! And if you cant get that through your fleebing skull then we dont have a future Maxine! I love you to death but we're through!"

And with that he turned to leave the hut. He was hard to recognize, he was just so young. His eyes held and innocent and purity that Tomorrow had never seen before. And likely, would never see again. Because before Maximos could turn to recognize that the enemy was literally outside his doorstep, Maxine did. Tomorrow would see, this pale woman, almost Maximos' height with a warrior's' build, lock eyes with him for just a fleeting second. And then with the sort of speed and grace the Aesir had come to expect from Maximos himself, she dove in front of this young Maximos and took a bolt of pure white light straight to the abdomen. Black blood spray in all directions splattering Maximos face as the core of her frame was quite literally scorched away in one fell blast.

And all at once it was as if time stopped.

If one looked close enough at the look of abject shock and disbelief on Maximos' face they might just be able to see the precise moment his heart broke. The moment reality crashed down on his head and took...everything. But even if you could see it...he couldnt. Not yet.

"MAXINE!" He shouted, and in a moment, Maximos' arms were around her. Before gravity could take her, he did, and yet with the suddenness off the moment, both he and her fell. Maximos to his knee's' with the remnants of this ruined women in his lap.

She drew a breath and opened her mouth, but Maximos was quick to cover it with his hand. He shushed her, repeatedly. "Dont speak", he would say. "Save your strength." He begged and beckoned, but Maxine continued. Her dying breaths each accompanied with a spurt of black ichor that stained her porcelain pale face as horribly as tar on snow. For a few feet away, the General on his white horse watched in dark amusement.

"I can fix this! Stay with me!" He screamed, his hand slipped down to her pulsing white wound, there was a crackle and a pop and his hand pulled back as if he had touched a hot stove. The light, still burned in her stomach, it slowly began making its way through her like white hot veins, eating her away from one central point.

"I love you." She whispered, reaching a hand up to touch his face.

"SHUT UP!" Maximos barked back down immediately. "Dont you talk like your leaving! I wont just let you die! This is NOT goodbye Maxi, stop it!"

"I love you..." She whispered again, slipping a smile on her face. By this point black tears were streaming down Maximos' face, mixing with her blood in long wet lines, but he didnt seem to notice. He shoved his right hand into her, the white light cracking and popping but he wouldnt pull away. Pain wracked his face, but all he kept repeating was No, over and over like some mantra.

For a moment, a few seconds which undoubtedly felt like an eternity, the white light stopped spreading. Shadows and black began to pull over her wound to knit and seal. And then it stopped, the glowing pulse of the Light venom racing like a heartbeat. Maximos', No's degraded down to wet sobs and tears. He wasnt good enough, it showed, he knew it, and it tore him apart inside as cleanly as any knife.

Maxine reached her hands up to cup Maximos' face, as if she knew... "I love you..."

Maximos didnt have words anymore, no encouragement, no hope. He crushed her against him, calling out her name, shouting against the gods, no's, denials, and refusals. Streams of black smoke and miasma began to rise from the fallen woman.

There was a certain science here, as there is with all magic. Shadowlanders were cursed beings. They were spirits trapped in shadow, when the shadow was 'cleansed', the spirit was set free. Of course, being that the spirit was bound to shadow, which was a corporeal thing. That meant, it was tangible, even palpable as it escaped. Maximos could see, and even feel her leaving. Smoke through his fingers, and there was nothing he could do. Eventually, the sobs gave out, and all the young and later to become 'mighty', 'frightening', and 'formidable' foe Tomorrow knew so well, could do was scream. No words or rhythm just throat tearing screams of raw pain. It must have been what a heart breaking would sound like, if it could speak.

Before the Lightwatcher General, before Johnathan Tomorrow, before the gods, Maximos just screamed. And Maxine just floated up and away from her body. The pulsing veins of white finally reached her neck and face, and then all together she began to crumble in his arms like old stone. Leaving Maximos pawing tragically at the mist that was her essence, escaping him. Only then did he realize he never said he loved her back, their last meaningful conversation was a fight. And it was too late now. Maximos was just...

KRAKOOM!

...nothing. She was absolutely nothing. Before his eyes, the Knight atop his pure white steed fired another bolt of white into her floating essence. Killing her before she could pass on. Forever.

And for moment, Maximos just stood there. He did not cry or scream, or even breath. He did not acknowledge the man who had just slaughtered his love into oblivion. He was just blank. That blank spot would haunt his soul for ages, it would never be filled, never remedied, but often visited. It was like...a sickness. One which Maximos would never find the cure for.

The Shadow's reacted ages before he did, twitching writing and swarming against the lights and in all sorts of unnatural ways. Black rose up behind him, his shadow swirled and transmorphed into the outline of a person. A knight in jet black armor. The figure raised its arms, as if pulling puppet strings and with a sort of distinct lifelessness, Maximos rose with his eyes tightly shut. Maxine's remains fell to the ground crumbling into loose chunks of black.

"Cursed of the Shadowfather! Kill this fiend! Kill it where it stands!" Shouted the General, summoning another ball of white to his hand. The figure behind Maximos responded by extending a hand toward the mounted Knight. Shadows snapped and jolted toward the man, frightening his white horse enough to make it leap awkwardly and send him tumbling to the floor.

Maximos' head jerked to one side, his lips peeled back, and for a moment it seemed as if his once normal teeth were just a bit bigger. A bit, longer perhaps. His hands twitched, his fingers opening and then dancing like an angry spider. Shadows pooled, and swirled around him in arms of black and snake-like lines. The General worked his way to his feet, and then drew a long white sword.

Maximos made a sound, something between a groan and a growl. He grinned, and yet, by the size of the teeth no...fangs, in his mouth it seemed as if he really had no choice. His lips would never close over something like that. If you looked closely, you could almost see it. A twitch, a jerk, a spasm in which instinct fought...and then the moment where it lost, and Maximos just...gave in.

He opened his hand, and darkness gathered, the broken remains of Maxine's shell dissolved as something unnecessarily large and chaotic began to form in his hand. A manifestation, if one will, of everything Maximos was feeling...or rather...everything he could not feel. Madness. Rage. Insanity, and that was the form the sword in his hand took. All chaos and death. It was at least 5ft long and 6inches across. And when the General charged, Maximos' eyes snapped open, both jet black pools of emptiness and he swung it.

The huge sword cleft right through the Lightwatcher General's sword, and his hands, and his armor, and himself. Like he was butter and the thing in Maximos' hand was as light as a stick. Of course, Tomorrow need not be told what would happen next. A second slash and Maximos killed the horse, then the next knight to rush in. And the next...and the next...

All while the figure behind him laughed, it was a dark deep laugh that echoed through the shadows and rumbled the earth. In the moment before Maximos closed on him, and just after he realized this dream would allow him to move, Johnathan Tomorrow would know he was right about the Shadowlanders. They had no experience, no killer instinct. And they would not have any for a very long time, but today...they most certainly gained a Destroyer.

And then all at once, just as that horrible monster swung the huge sword at him, John's world went black.

Flicker. A flash of red and something flooded Tomorrow’s senses.

The rusty metallic scent of freshly spilled blood.

Flicker.

The popping and tearing sound of skin and bone breaking and ripping apart. The steady series of snaps accompanying sinew ripping away.

Flicker.

The feel of breath escaping, of life being choked away by ones own teeth. Breaths escaping in ragged pulls and wheezes.

Flicker.

The explosion echoed across the dark space like every bit of the thunder it was. The room quaked, shaken to its very foundations, shivering in the aftermath like we imagine scared children do in the dark. And Tomorrow's fists crashed eagerly into the wall.

Flicker.

People running in mindless terrior down a main street screaming curses and prayers in a language Tomorrow simply did not know. Some hurried along children or elders, other trampled the weak and fled with only what possessions they could hold in their hands.

Flicker.

There was resistance at first, a moment of strength and stability, and then the wall gave. Its flat surface cracking and crumbling under the weight of his fists, of himself, of his anger. In a moment, the Aesir was given everything he wanted.

Flicker.

Men gather on a horizon, cresting over a hill in a wall of armor and weapons encircling a valley easily a hundred miles across. There were hundreds of men, thousands, a million to be exact.

Flicker.

The wall had broken. It had been ruined, crumbled, no...destroyed. And there was an addictive satisfaction in that. The knowledge, the feeling of something falling to dust and under ones own power. It was a release of sorts, like the crackle and pop of dry wood tossed into a flame. And yet like so much kindling it fueled the fire until it was an uncontrollable thing. A force of natural, wild and terrible as any storm.

One ferocious blow lead stoppably into the next. The Aesir was on a rampage, destroying more walls and barriers than the whole of Shadow Island should have had, and yet nothing impeded his war path. With ever attack, there was a flash of red, and a new vision and as the fury pressed on the flashes bled together into a moving, flowing picture. His fists slammed into the floor and lightning flashed out in wild white arcs and chains.

Flicker. A man in black and slamming his sword overhead and down, splashing up thick red globs. The warm life blood, painted his bone white face and Tomorrow would be able to feet it, dripping down his own cheeks. It was horrible and wonderful and with a hunger drove him to continue until there was only wet chunks of meat, fit for consumption by scavengers and toothless beats. But this monster had teeth, and it used them.

Flicker. Tomorrow would see the same man with his humongous and twisted sword chasing after a fleeing crowd. He swung his weapon wildly into their bottom ranks, chopping some down, mortally wounding others, until he grew bored of the chase and slammed his weapon point into the soil sprouting up a myriad of shadowy black arms, tendrils and random appendages to hold down his prey as he stalked in to savor the kill with his own two blood stained hands.

Flicker. A hundred mounted men on horses, not warriors of light just warriors of men ordered a thousand thousand troops under each of their commands to advance. A million man army rushed down a sunken grassy valley to face a foe too terrible for any one nation to handle alone. A single man, in all black, with an enormous sword and a rictus fanged grin across his blood caked face.

The scenes did not stop with simple introductions. Tomorrow’s own rage force fed him into the scenes. He would not only watch, but feel skin being flayed layer by thin later from a living and screaming mass. Organs removed and consumed just to see how torturously long it would take for the victim to die. He learned, how to make death, short and overwhelming or long and languid. He fed off the suffering, indulging in it like a drowning man gasping for air. He would feel the indescribably agony and longing when mere seconds had passed between kills, when the sound of screams was silent and the electrify scent of fear was absent from the air for a moment. There was an unbearable need that filled every inch of his being when something…anything, was not dying in his hands. There were even times that this mad fiend turned the blade on himself just to dine on the pangs of it.

As his own power rushed through him, the Aesir would feel the unholy strength that allowed a man of this young Maximos’ size and stature to swing a gigantic sword into a wave of dozens of troops and scatter them like so many small figurines back into their ranks. The unbreakable resolve that made it so that even as soldiers impaled, sliced, and skewered him, he continued to chop and slay. It was enough to make one wonder if Maximos always had this power, if he had just held it back when he and Tomorrow fought.

There was an insatiable pit inside Maximos that could never be filled. A pit that someone had filled with a great and vile power that both fed off and fed his unending slaughter. Someone bigger than the Shadow Warrior had ever been or would ever be, someone addictive, and horrible and dark. And…

And what? The narrative was no longer the slow motion of play cast events it began as. There was chaos here. The evil, that fueled Maximos resonated with the anger that fueled Tomorrow and now, finally now, they were finally brothers. Brothers in power, and rage, and destruction.

What happened now? That lie in the hands of the thunder god.

Tomorrow could not handle it. Tomorrow was not meant to handle it. He was a creature of flesh and blood and such fleshy containments were far too weak when compared to a corporeal coil of shadows. This may seem pretentious as if it put Maximos on some sort of pedestal, until one realized that the man Tomorrow met at that Tavern, was also flesh and blood.

As the injuries mounted and pain stacked on pain, the visions playing before the Aesir’s eyes also shifted. Maximos and Tomorrow raced across a grassy plain toward a city. There were flashes now, a dozen, perhaps two or more and figures manifested from the empty air. Archs and waves of barely tamed multicolored energies flew through and between them, and then all at once there was a blinding flash of white light, and then pain.

There was no grass, no plain, no city. And then…nothing. The black overcame the white light. There was silence in the wake of Tomorrow’s question, and then a voice. Ragged, weak, and on the verge of tears.

“I…remember…” , the voice answered.

It started like a drop of water in a pond. A single point of life that expanded in waves, brushing away the darkness until Tomorrow was able to see clearly.

Maximos was walking, if indeed walking you could call it. One foot shuffled in front of the other, leaving zig zag patterns in the sand. Was it hours? Days? Weeks? He did not scream or curse or thrash with mania. His sword trailed on the ground drawing a line in the sand for miles. The hunger...the empty pit. It ate at him, it dug apart everything that he was and left him with nothing but pain. Until the pain became as much a part of him as breathing, and The Destroyer had nothing but silence.

And then a laugh filled the air.

A little girl raced down a sand dune swinging a wooden sword and laughing. Maximos' jet black eyes settled on her immediately, a dry gray tongue licked cracked lips and he ran at her with reckless abandon. And the sand dune moved like a hand sliding beneath a sheet. The little girl froze and screamed, the sand broke massive mouth easily capable of engulfing a house raced toward her, like a sort of moving cave. The Destroyer seemed completely oblivious, chasing after his tiny prey.

He closed on her, his arms wrapped around her and then...something changed.

Maximos broke left and ran, and ran, as fast as his legs could carry him until –

A flash of white. The very same little girl, with dark skin and black hair was leading Maximos by the hand into a small village and shouting something in a very soft and fluid language. She lead the Shadow into a crowd of quickly excited tan skinned men and women, looking entirely lost as they surrounded and praised him.

Another flash. Maximos was soaking in a tub up to his belly, the water tinged red and black by sand and dust and blood. He sat still, seemingly only because he was told too, unsure what to think or do while someone rubbed his blue hair with sweet smelling lather.

Flash. Maximos was walking through the village, carrying boxes or pulling wagons, dressed in whites and blue loose fitting desert clothes. He was smiling, not grinning. His eyes a natural dark tint surrounded by milky white. His teeth, blunt and ordinary.

Flash. Maximos and the little girl were playing some sort of game of hide and seek. The girl darted inside her house and came out with a set of wooden swords and ran outside tossing one to Maximos. Instinctively he caught the weapon, snapped it into a high guard and was about to send it crashing down on the little girl without a thought when instead he shouted, flung the sword and crashed to the ground holding his head.

Flash. Maximos looked up at the sky with a look of overwhelming fear on his face, waiting for something terrible.

Flash. Moonlight poured into a sandstone window, and Maximos sat huddled in the silver light crying and holding himself, rocking back and forth. The very same little girl raced into his room, wrapped her arms around him. Moments later her father brought tea and a few books, and her mother came behind with as many candles as she could carry and a small string instrument to play music on and sing too.

Flash. A bookshelf was being slid aside, Maximos was being led down a spiral staircase to a massive underground room filled with glowing crystal light and row after row of shelves, stacked 20ft up or higher and filled to the brim with books.

Flash. Maximos read, and read, and read. Blinking from spot to spot across the library randomly at first and then systematically just reading.

Flash. The girl was older now, taller, and fitter, she was hugging Maximos tight and crying as he lift a bag over his shoulder. He smiled, but this parting was bittersweet at best. The village had gathered, many smiling, many crying. Maximos waved to them and then turned to leave back across the sand.

Flash, flash, flash. What was a narrative became images. Maximos half way up a tree reaching for a cat. Maximos scaring away bullies. Maximos chasing after monsters. Maximos traveling with a group of random people. A woman with green hair and tiger eyes. A man with long black hair and covered in magic symbols, and more.

A black scar ripped in open air, sucking Maximos and his companions in. Maximos standing naked in Latent Square. Maximos fighting in the Stadium. And then the flashes stopped. Fading images and half lit scenes remained, like a projector running out of film, or a flashlight with dying batteries. That left only faces, rising and fading, a brilliant red headed woman, a woman with blue hair and bat-like ears, Tomorrow himself, an elven woman with bandages over her eyes. The whole in Maximos’ heart was filled with people, memories, and love, leaving only a small hole. A place just tiny enough to pocket his emotions when the time required.

When the last imagine finally faded, Tomorrow’s eyes opened. He was standing just inside the doorway of a large gymnasium with a complex series of lines, circles and runes drawn on its floor in white chalk, and lit by bright blue burning fires lining each wall. Not a wall or floor was injured but a hundred feet away from him Maximos lay on the floor, sprawled out on his back as if he had simply collapsed from exhaustion.

But he was not alone.

Crouched behind Maximos, holding his head was a small child of about seven or eight. The child wore a black skirt that hung from his hips and pooled around him, it looked absolutely nothing about cloth and everything like someone had peeled a piece of the night sky away from the heavens and bound it about their waist, complete with sparkling starlight. He wore no shirt, but over his shoulders was a long royal purple sleeveless robe, trimmed with sunset orangish gold. This all stood out amazingly well against his impossibly pale skin, and made his tousled indigo hair seem all the more vibrant. The child looked up from Maximos, setting the Shadow’s head down gently on the ground. A dozen or so rings of gold, indigo, and black, adorned his fingers. He looked up and settled a set of brilliant violet eyes on Tomorrow. They shone like twin glowing pinkish rings from shining out from tragic sleepless dark eyes that very nearly made it look as if this poor child had never known sleep. In chest, jutting out from where his heart should have been, pinning his robe to his chest was a glimmering golden knife impaled viciously into the boy and bleeding blackness which dripped down his chest and then raced off into the darkness as if fleeing home. And then, the boy smiled.

And all at once, everything was wrong. Every child has fears, and nightmares. The lights go out at night, and children fear. Its natural. Its instinctive. Something makes a sound in the night and we automatically pull from our imagination a terrible something. Why? How? Him.

And in his gaze anyone who ever feared the dark knew fear, as they had never known it before. The boy stood up, slowly but powerfully. As he rose his shadow crawled backwards behind him, racing across the floor and up the wall behind it, smothering the blue flames behind him as the shadow took the familiar form of a black knight in plate armor.

“Oh, Johnathan Tomorrow…” The boy said, looking at Tomorrow an frowning a theatric sort of frown, speaking with a young but all too wise voice, seemingly anticipating Tomorrow’s reaction and the imminent question, “…You know just who I am…”

He held out his arms, like a small boy asking for a hug. “…don’t be so distant.”