She felt like her heart had stopped beating entirely… until she heard him talk.

"M… Mandy?" Finn whispered, having been briefly knocked out by the impact to the seats.

"Stay still, okay?" Amanda responded as they held each other, her hazel eyes looking into Finn's blue ones... and seeing a little flicker of black though she just chalked it up to adrenaline running high. "They're gonna kill each other…" She whispered.

"Hopefully the big man first… son of a bitch has it coming to him." Finn responded.

Amanda nodded in agreement before Finn pulled her back down behind the seats as the fighting got louder and Natasha screamed in anger after being punched in her spine.

"Just… look what's become of you. The once all powerful princess of hell…" The man said, Natasha straightening herself upright.

"Look what I have risen above. The mirror will show you that."

"I was going to kill you, but… perhaps it would be more to just leave you here, wasting away into this life of weakness." The man responded, his hands turning to metal as the two sets of eyes were locked onto each other.

"If taking lives, dominating and possessing things is all you define yourself by… then you have nothing." Natasha replied, the man's eyes narrowing.

"What do YOU have?!" He yelled, a burst of fire coming from his right fist which he threw upwards between them, throwing burning scraps of the ring floor into the air. "Really… why'd you come to this place? Maybe… to protect something?" His words began to edge to Natasha and she began to tense up her legs. "Or… no, not something. Protecting some…one."

That was when it happened. The sleeves of Natasha's jacket tore apart as pentagrams on her shoulders began to burn and her left hand and forearm turned to metal too, a jet of flames forming from her knuckles as though they were Wolverine knives.

The two were locked to each other even more… while Natasha felt different starting positions, the man's feet shifted slightly unsteadily…

Then he growled out and launched forwards, attempting to jet fire right into Natasha's eyes.

But she held her arm up in front of her face and shielded herself, doing the same to her chest as he tried that. Then she spun around on one foot and fire jetted from her hand again…

The two hidden behind the audience seats weren't sure what had happened after that as the next few seconds had the two just staring at each other… then the man's arms lowered and Natasha crouched in time to catch him as he fell.

"Tell me… who is it?" He whispered shakily, Natasha whispering in his ear. "Then we will… be avenged." Those were the last words that that demon would ever speak, and Natasha's face the last thing he'd ever see.

Natasha turned back into her human form and walked back to Amanda and Finn as the ringside crew, shaken by what had happened, absentmindedly fixed up the NXT ring.

"Are you two alright?" Natasha asked.

"Ye… yes. Who was that, what was his name?" Amanda managed to respond as Finn held her close to him.

"Lorka... he rebelled my father's order and killed my mother, whoever she was… I don't remember her and father refuses to utter a word of it." Natasha answered.

Amanda helped Finn sit down but when she went to go look for the trainers, Finn pulled her into his lap and his arms wrapped around her.

"You were just thrown to the ground from 20 feet in the air, you could've broken something…" Amanda whispered as she buried her head into his shoulder, her arms wrapping around him… to her shock, Finn had no signs of any injury.

"I made sure of it…" Natasha said quietly, a few moments before she walked off back down towards the ring.

"She shouldn't be alone…" Amanda said as she tried to stand up.

"She needs to clear her mind…" Finn responded, burying his head into Amanda's tousled hair and the warm scent of black orchids calming him down and reassuring him that she was there in his arms safely and not locked back in that closet.

At the same time, Hunter ran into the main part of the arena and found Natasha.

"Your employees… they freaking out back there?" Natasha asked.

"Yeah… they are. Are you alright, what happened?" Hunter replied.

"I just made a mess of your ring after fighting with the man who took away my mother from us…" Natasha answered, finding that it was a lot less easy to say than she thought it would be. "I just… he pulled everything apart and he still wasn't done!"

"He's… he's dead now… right?" Hunter asked, Natasha nodding.

"If you're looking for them, 24th row… I sensed previous neurological disturbances from Amanda but I'm not clear why." Natasha responded.

"No one is… chalked it up to repeated concussions even though she's tried to prevent them." Hunter said, Natasha looking at him.

"Some things can't be prevented." Natasha said quietly.

In the backstage area, Finn and Amanda were in the locker room holding each other after both had been checked out by the doctors as a precaution… her head rested on his torso, her hearing his heart beating strongly as his fingers ran through her hair.

"Hey…" Finn said quietly, Amanda looking at him. "We're okay… he's gone now. He's not gonna come back." He whispered, kissing the side of Amanda's head.

But she had a feeling she had seen Lorka before.

11/28/04…

John didn't need to hear for long to know that the high pitched painful scream belonged to Amanda and ran to the backyard, Amanda curled on her left side onto the freezing ground and John crouching down to her.

"Mandy, what happened?!" John asked, helping her sit up.

"I saw someone out here… but when I went to go check on them, I got pulled out the window…" Amanda answered, the 14 year old feeling embarrassed more than anything… she tried to move her left arm but John stopped her, seeing how it was bent. "It's a really bad sign if I can't feel my fingers, right?" She asked as John helped her up… and through the dense fog, he saw a tall figure.

"What the hell?" John muttered.

"Uh, John? Please reset my arm." Amanda said, John snapping out of it and turning back to her.

"Yeah, sure… brace for it, kiddo." John said, looking over the arm and getting a good position in both of his hands before quickly bending and twisting it back into the right position.

Amanda suppressed a scream and closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths before opening her eyes as John helped her to the Charger.

At the ER, Elizabeth had just started her shift when she saw her boyfriend and his little sister walk in and ran over to them.

"Damn it, what happened?!" Elizabeth asked as she examined Amanda's arm once they were in a trauma room.

"Said she fell outside… but I saw someone nearby, I'm convinced he pulled her out the window." John explained.

"John, my arm would've been ripped off if that had happened." Amanda says.

"Suppose so… he did look like a pretty big guy, I'd almost say we're the next in the line of Bigfoot sightings." John said.

"Yeah…" Amanda responded, trying not to scream when sharp stabbing pains attacked her ribcage.

"Damn, I think she might've broke a few ribs. I'll go call the x-ray techs, see if the room's busy." Elizabeth said before leaving.

"When Mom and Dad hear about this one, I'm grounded." Amanda says quietly as John braced a hand on her back before his phone rang and he looked at it before letting it go to voicemail. "Right, Randy's gotta be going stir crazy." She said, remembering that their friend tended to call them a lot throughout the holiday season.

"He can handle a few hours by himself." John responded, carefully hugging Amanda.

Lorka ran across the snow covered fields, realising his error.

"Damn it… wasn't Natasha. She's gotta be somewhere." Lorka growled before disappearing into the fog…

Present time…

Neither one of them spoke a word of the incident to anyone.

By the time they were in the UK for the later tour of the year, Amanda's hair was shorter and she had finished applying Essie's Fill The Gap and Essie's Smokin' Hot to her nails.

She put her things aside after washing her hands and throwing the used cotton balls away and felt Finn's arms around her waist, Amanda leaning into him.

He was starting to get a little more protective of her… but Amanda didn't mind.

But she would ask him about a healing bite on the crook of her neck soon.

A bite she knew matched his teeth.