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Alec's hand did connect with the blade, and the flesh bit deep into the black steel. But a strange thing happened. Rather than explode into a shower of blood and bone marrow, Alec's hand simply split right down the middle. Alec looked at it for a second, then looked up at Ialo and smiled. Alec's hand began to crack and break like dry skin, but soon the cracks turned into something completely unexpected. Alec's hand began to crumble away like it was dust, and pretty soon it reached up to his arm. Within minutes Alec's entire body was crumbling into nothing but pure dirt, and the next moment Alec was sitting in a pile of rubble and soot at Ialo's feet.

All around the room Ialo would be able to hear Alec's deep laughter resonating. "Sorry to spoil your fun Ialo, but I'd never put myself in direct harm. You gotta find me if you wanna hurt me!" And with that, a metal spike shot up from the ground. The spike stood there for a moment, seeming to stare Ialo down, but then it erupted with a burst of sizzling electricity. The spike began to send bolts of lighting straight at Ialo, rapidly firing them off in quick succession.

Alec was having too much fun with this now. Alec shot up from the ground again, this time looking as he normally did. He crossed his arms over his chest casually as he spoke calmly to Ialo. "Awww, I would never want to give you that impression now would I?" Alec looked over to his left, where ANOTHER Alec shot up from the ground and landed on his feet. The other Alec looked at the original Alec and responded to his question. "No, he'd NEVER want that! Right man?" A third Alec popped, repeating the process. Each time one finished a new one popped up, making a near gaggle of Alec's appear.

"Noooooooo, never! Am I right? Am I right?"

"I don't know, is he right?"

"He could be right. What do you think?"

"I think we aughta get back into this, right?"

"You're so right, right?"

And that's when all 8 Alec's shouted "RIGHT!" in unison and charged at Ialo at once. Each of them had their own element to work with. Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Metal, Lightning, Ice, and even Wood came barreling towards Ialo in a perfect 8 pointed formation.

Ialo's eye started twitching. Oh... kay... This was going to take some effort. He mumbled a spell under his breath. The room was encompassed in total darkness. Not absence-of-light darkness. Darkness, as in the magic. The inaudible spell was the only warning before the combat gym instantaneously filled with dark magic, blocking out all manner of ambient lighting, deathly to any creature of light or white magic, and it was even thick enough to suffocate anything less than massive pure light magic spells.

Ialo honestly didn't think he had that sort of power or control in him, but he had pulled the stunt off with plenty of energy to spare.

"Oh, wait, can you still hea -" Ialo's voice cut off. He was long gone from where Alec's copies were targeting. And as another measure, he had layered the dark magic to block sound as well.

With no sight and no sound, Ialo was confident he would have the upper hand. Alec could sense his aura, but Ialo was a dragon, and therefore thought himself infinitely more skilled in that area. So when would he realized that his own aura had turned dark, spurting sparks of black and purple and red energies, instead of pale blues and grays?

Ialo reflexively brought up a magic shield when Alec shot up from the ground and destroyed the dark magic. It was so thick, Ialo realized, that it was actually quite miraculous that anyone besides a demon could even breathe.

But seeing as how Alec was not rushing at him with attacks, Ialo slowly let the shield dissolve, and glanced at the mirror, then back at Alec.

"I know what I'm going to see," he said in eerie calm. "My eyes are red, aren't they? And the whites have turned black." He held up his arm and looked at it. "The scales are black now too, and my claws have grown longer than normal. I imagine at this point, my face is turning black as well." Ialo had described his physical appearance perfectly, without having to look at the mirror. Indeed, ominous black marks resembling vines were covering about half his face, and expanded like spilled sumi ink on rice paper.

"You think I don't know, don't you Leaton? You think I'm unaware of what's happening to me. Problem is, I don't think you know either. No one does."

"Unfortunately Mr. Leaton, I know exactly where it came from." Nonetheless, Ialo sat next to Alec. The darkness had stopped spreading, but it had not receded. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather this not turn into a psychiatric session."

There was no loss of tension on Ialo's side. If anything, it got worse as he regarded Alec with a very suspicious glare. "At this point, I'm tempted to think you were screwing with me just so you could see how I battle - which is not very often."

"So no matter where I go, I'm always being screwed with, huh?" Ialo's voice was full of unadulterated hatred - not necessarily for Alec, but definitely for the world in general. "I can't go two ******** steps without my own free will being challenged. Every day is the day where I wake up and wonder it's today, if today's going to be the day." He paused, and added: "I envy that stupid girl so much right now. She had the guts to jump. I didn't."

Ialo looked away. "She's not DEAD though," he insisted. "The moment I get my strategy ironed out, I'm going to go to where the Ancients are keeping her, and I'm going to bring her back force, if I have to." His face held the devious of expression of a man who was firstly, squarely off his rocker, and secondly, relying on a trump card. Or two or three or six. "And before you say it again, I am NOT overreacting!"