Return From Darkness

Judging by the shadow lord's miffed reaction, it was obvious now that Alan and his partner were starting to get under his skin. In a way, this was good since it increased the chance of him being more reckless in his attacks which they could take advantage of. On the other hand, it also meant that he'd start demonstrating some actual power in this fight.

That thought process was proven right when Cain got walls of darkness to rise up on all sides of them and flew forward in an attempt to crush them. At first glance it looked like the attack had succeeded, but on closer inspection, deep growling could be heard as Siren could be seen holding back the walls with her hands and feet! Sweat streamed down her brow as she fought to keep them from crushing her.

The clash of person and walls went on for several tense seconds as Siren finally mustered the strength to morph one of her hands into the medieval torture device from before and with one mighty cry that echoed through downtown...she slammed her fist into the darkness...and after another second, cracks formed in it and broke apart along with the others.

Breathing heavily, Siren glared down at the shadow lord from on high, "Come on, you coward...why don't you come up here and fight me head on? Or is the great "Shadow Lord" scared he'll get beaten by a girl?!!!"

She not only stopped his walls from colliding with her but she was eventually able to break them a part? The fuck!? Sure, he hadn’t been using all of his power in the fight against her, and sure he had been taking it easy because he was toying with her. But this? This was just unacceptable. She was not that powerful, she was not that special. There was no way she, he, it, they whatever this thing was should have been able to even stand up to his might let alone take hits, break his toys, and keep coming back for more. Glaring at her he cackled at her challenge. She wanted a fight? She wanted him to show her his best? She didn’t deserve his best.

“Beaten? You’ve barely laid a scratch on me. You cannot harm me. You don’t even realize how easily I’ve been taking it on you. You want me to step it up a notch? Fine. I can indulge you this if only before I drink you dry, rip the head off your body and then light the other half on fire and watch as it turns into ash.” With a snap of his fingers the area around them seemingly exploded in darkness. Except unlike last time where he simply closed them in a sort of shadow bubble this time was different. This time he extinguished all visible light around themand surround himself and her in darkness and shadow. Essentially surrounding them in a pitch-black space making all light in that area stifled and the thing unable to see around them. Him though? This was his domain. He had been to the “Shadow Realm” this was nothing.

“Let’s see you fight what you can’t see.” He practically growled out a menacing and crazed cackle escaping the lips of the Black King. Sure he couldn’t quite manipulate the shadows as there were no light to make them but he could still see which was much more than he could say for them. Unsheathing his Kilij of Shadows he spun the blade in his hands and jumped off the ground slashing it out at towards the bitches wings. Had to level the playing field there for a bit. No need to let her fly around while he was still stuck on the ground.

There was no denying it now. The Shadow King was pissed, as was evident by his hate-filled rant that showed his true character as not a "man of wealth and taste" but a bloodthirsty monster who needed to be stopped before more lives suffered. This fact was only proven further when the world around them was once more consumed by darkness, only this kind felt different, deeper, and even harder to navigate than before.

"Something tells me that pissing him off probably wasn't the best idea..." Alan commented in his head.

"Ah geez, you're only NOW realizing that?!" Aurora rolled her eyes, "Anyways...be on your guard...from here on out, the real fight starts..."

"Right..." Suddenly, and with little warning, Siren screamed in pain as Cain's blade found its mark and cut a deep gash into their  back, causing them to scream as they fell to the earth hard.  The hero groaned in pain as they could feel their green blood flowing from the cut. Even if it weren't life-threatening it was obvious they wouldn't be flying for a while.

Siren sat up while trying to catch their breath, wondering how they were suppose to keep fighting...only to then have an idea. With but a thought, they felt their arm form into a giant blade again, o With more of the green blood dripping down their face, they swung their blade and free hand, causing more blood to fly all over the place. Even if they couldn't see anything, that didn't mean they couldn't HEAR as well.

As such, bloodied and cut, but still functioning, they rose their weapon and decided to trust their senses to face what was to come.

A vicious grin spread across the Lord of Shadow’s face as he watched the fool fall to the ground. He himself landing a tad bit more elegantly, feet first into a crouching position as he watched the scene unfold before him. He may not have been the quietest person in the world but that honestly didn’t matter too much to him at this moment. He cackled watching them wipe or fling some of the blood off their face and then turn their hand into a blade once more. Not that it would do them much good. Cain was impossibly hard to hurt. In fact he wasn’t entirely sure how they got him to bleed in the first place but . . . their blood was not normal. He could smell it.

Grinning he merged with the infinite darkness around them, mostly, and slinked up over to where Siren was standing, ready to attack and lash out at anything they could. Running one hand up their back as his face leaned in close and ran his tongue across the blood that was still there, savoring it in his mouth as he made a move to plunge the Kilij of Shadows right into their gut. Sure, he was up close and personal and was leaving himself open for an attack but he doubted they could hurt them. IF he was proven wrong though it wouldn’t be the first time and besides their blood was good. It was different. Something he had never tasted before and now he wanted more of it.

As if Cain wasn't bad enough already, to add to his list of faults was his lack of honor. But if that was how he wanted to play the game, Siren would definitely oblige. They listened closely for the sounds of his footsteps, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. However, it appeared Cain would once more have the upper hand, as next thing they knew they felt something wet and slimy run up the side of their face, sending goosebumps all through their body.

It was at that moment...something snapped inside of them. Without screaming or making any move they had felt anything, they whirled around and swung their sword to lock blades with Cain. Instead of summoning another blade, they transformed their free hand to gain spikes all over it and even caused blades and spikes to form on their legs. They gathered some blood in their mouth and spat it in the direction of Cain's face before going on the attack, mixing blade swings and using the momentum behind them to throw devastating punches and kicks.

The little birdie was fast, the little birdie had claws. They even spat. Feeling the blood mixed spit land on his face, a lucky shot in pitch black made the Lord of Shadows laugh. “Oh, dearie me, don’t you know that spitters are quitters?” He grinned and moved to deflect the punches and kicks that came flying towards him in a seemingly endless barrage of blind furry. Quite literally. The blade strikes were easy enough to deflect or parry with his own, the kicks and punches however were not quite as easy to knock aside or deal with. Quite a few of them made it past his best defenses and they smacked into him or kicked him in different places. As for actually doing damage? That was an entirely different story. The little birdie was strong there was no denying that but Cain had faced Gods and Monsters. His body could take the punishment.

He might have a couple bruises the next day or so but there was no severe damage done. Unless you counted the rips in his clothes due to the spikes that now seemingly covered her extremities. “Is that the best you can do sweet heart? I’m severely unimpressed. I expected better, so here let me show you.” Turning his sword around to the blunt side in his hand he essentially went to backhand her across the face with the broad side of his Kilij. Upon completing that he would rush forward and slash downwards across her midsection with a vicious grin almost as if fixed on his face. At this exact moment the light would return to the area they were in as if whatever universal force was out there was giving Siren a shot, except a shadow like spear immediately formed and shot forward intending to spear through their back.

Siren could feel themselves beginning to breathe a little heavier, even feeling sweat drip down their brow as the long battle was slowly but surely taking its toll on them. It was obvious now that if they didn't start wrapping this up soon, they'd run out of stamina before Cain did...and then who knew what would happen to them?

As if to give them a taste of what would happen, they felt a sharp pain across the side of their head from Cain's backhand. However, they managed to raise their blade and managed to stop his downward slash, though the strength required to even hold back his blade, caused them to fall to one knee.

As they began formulating another plan, streams of light began piercing through the darkness...but Siren was no fool. They had fought Cain long enough to have at least some idea of how he acted, and as such, they tucked and roll to the side to avoid the spear, "Sorry, but the same trick ain't gonna work twice." Knowing it was a bit of a gamble but needing to do it, the hero used their powers on a nearby dumpster and climbed on, using it as a platform to move in the air as they rose up with loads of other heavy objects and what not.

They zoomed towards Cain while hurling the barrage of debris like a deadly rain of metal. A sloppy technique? Indeed, but that's what they were hoping for. Siren began leaping between the flying debris before springing off and flying towards Cain, using the debris as cover while their feet turned into a pair of pointed spears. They put their feet together and began spinning at high speeds with feet pointed forward in the manner of a flying drill attack.

Had Cain expected the spear to work? Possibly. Was he disappointed or upset when it didn’t find its mark? Maybe a little. Admittedly that wasn’t all that different from his emotional state most of the time. Anger was something the King of Darkness understood very well. Some would argue it was the only emotion he knew while others still would argue it was one of the two emotions that he had with the other of course being lust. Cain was honestly feeling both of those right now. His adrenaline was pumping and he was out to have some fun tonight. Sure, the green bag o’blood hadn’t been able to do all that much damage to him or even impress him all that much; but it was a hell of a lot more fun than he had originally thought this night was going to go.

When they jumped out of the way and sent the dumpster and other random bits and pieces flying out at him Cain simply laughed and raised his arms. The shadows flew up out of the ground swallowing the items before dispersing back down into the ground. To most people it would appear as if they were simply swallowed by the darkness, but Cain had in fact shadow traveled the debris to some random location. He was pretty sure it was all about to fall down on top of the building he had been standing on earlier in the night but that wasn’t what was important right now. No, what was important was the flying drill coming down at him. His mind reacted quicker than his body and thus he was able to see it coming but he was not able to move out of the way.

Siren would indeed jam her drill feet into Cain only for the Lord of Shadows to growl out in pain and react. Said reaction was while his body was being pushed back from the force of the blow, Siren spinning into his chest, he grabbed her legs. Grinning menacingly, a look of pure deranged joy in his blood red eyes, he squeezed down with all his might and chucked them into wall with enough force to hopefully send the little birdie crashing through and into the building. His shirt was totally ruined and you could even see a small circular cut in his chest. It may not be a big wound but it was still a wound nonetheless. “Mmm, now we’re getting somewhere.” The Bloody Bandit cooed as he stalked forwards.

There was that tiny voice in the back of Siren's mind saying that they were fighting a losing battle. It seemed like no matter what they threw at him, he could either deflect with his power over shadows or just shrug it off. However, the hero had chosen to ignore that voice and keep going. Their attack connected but they found themselves being grabbed and hurled through the wall at high speeds, grunting in pain.

They managed to shove some of the debris off of themselves and slowly get to their feet, only to wince and fall back to one knee again, breathing even heavier now. A quick look though showed their efforts had finally paid off as they had managed to hurt the seemingly invincible juggernaut. Of course, why did their attack work only now?

Wiping the blood dripping from their forehead, they managed to catch sight of a few stray rays of sunlight shining over the rooftops, which seemed to be enough to cause some of the shadows around them to recede. Feeling renewed determination, Siren forced herself to stand and stare down the shadow lord. Leaping onto a floating manhole cover, they flew towards their enemy again, ripping a car apart with telekinesis and using the pieces as giant boxing gloves as they released their sonic scream at the same time as they leaped off to attack him head on.

Cain watched as the strange person was able to stand after he basically crushed their legs and threw them in through a wall. Not only were they able to stand they were also seemingly able to telekinetically jump onto a manhole cover that hadn’t been thrown at him previously and sent away through his shadow manipulation. He rolled his eyes at the display and instead continued to slowly stalk towards his prey with no sense of urgency in his eyes or movement. They had yet to be able to do any serious bodily harm to him and he doubted they’d be able to ever actually be able to harm him. So, he was pleasantly surprised when the car part boxing gloves slammed into him before he was sent reeling back into the other wall that made up the alley by the sonic scream.

His ears still ringing the Lord of Shadows stood up hand on his head to compose himself. That hurt. That actually hurt and he wasn’t entirely sure why. Looking over his shoulder he saw why, and it frightened him more than he cared to admit. The sun was slowly rising in the distance and already a few rays of sunlight were breaking through the clouds and darkness that was the night. Cursing under his breath he made one last ditch effort attack throwing his hands forward as about a hundred piercing shadow spikes flew out to Siren attempting to at least impale a couple into them. “You get to live this time birdie, next time you may not be so lucky.” He called out at the same time as his body fell backwards into the shadows beneath, disappearing into the darkness as he shadow traveled back to New Orleans.

((Exit Cain.))

As they had hypothesized, the sun's light was indeed Cain's weakness. Their attack hit home and there was no denying they had done some real damage. However, it seemed Cain had taken notice and launched a barrage of shadow spikes. Siren took the car halves and slammed them together to use as a shield. Once the attack had stopped, they looked up to see that he had vanished.

Satisfied that the fight was over now, Siren groaned and collapsed to one knee yet again, feeling the weight of their injuries in full force, "He's gone...finally.."

"Yeah...but something tells me this ain't gonna be the last time we hear from him..." Aurora murmured, actually sounding somewhat worried for once.

Hearing the sirens in the distance, Siren used the manhole cover to float to the rooftops so they could rest and stay out of site, "Are you ok, Alan?"

"Yeah...I'm fine. Thanks, Aurora..." Siren winced as they knew they would need a while before their accelerated healing could fix all the accumulated damage. Alan also knew that if they were still human that they would be dead a dozen times over by now, "Just...we hit that guy with everything we had and the most I think we did was annoy him..."

"He did call himself the Lord Of Shadows...and I guess now we know that he didn't earn that title for nothing..." Aurora commented, "...And now I get the feeling that the corruption in this city runs a lot deeper than we thought, especially if there are powerful entities like him running around," At hearing her partner growl in pain and frustration, she decided to switch gears, "But we can focus on that later. Right now, we need to get away from here so we can heal up."

"Agreed..." With one last look at the streets below, Siren turned and disappeared into the night.

(End Thread)