"Wh-What in the world are you doing still alive?" Sef shouted at the top of his lungs, though regretting it as he was forced to listen to his own panicked voice echoing through the endless cavern. His shouts didn't make his darker half any more frightening than he already appeared.
"Don't seem so surprised Sef; after all, where did you think I would be sent with that incantation Uncle read off? Here is where all shadows and darkness originates and retreats to, the Underworld," Dark Sef said menacingly, waving his arms in different directions as though presenting a new home to an excited family. Sef gulped as the situation seemed only to growing worse and worse with each new development.
"I thought you were gone, as if you were never coming back," Sef argued, still remembering the utter horror of having that rusted sword pressed against the flesh of his throat and shivering with the thought.
"Nothing can simply be eliminated, especially dark beings such as I. We must be banished, for we cannot be destroyed. Even if you manage to sever our bodies we can assimilate into other earthly darkness and be revived. So thus I was sent here with the other black souls of mortals," Dark Sef said, and Sef cringed slightly with the tone in his voice.
"I have a hard time believing that you were ever some part of me."
"Everyone has a dark side Sef, no matter how innocent or naïve they may appear. Even your little girlfriend Jade and her family have them; I can see it written in the eyes of everyone. Their concealed pasts, their buried sins, everything evil or grotesque about them can be seen by those like me."
"What a gift. Now how the heck do I get out of here? I need to help Jade before Daolon Wong does something to her or she winds up here with me!"
Dark Sef laughed at this question, his quaking cackles reverberating off the walls so loudly that Sef was forced to cover his ears if only not to become deaf.
"If there was some way to escape this place don't you think I would have already utilized it? No Sef, you're trapped here just as all the rest of us are, and your weak and pathetic human body will easily be torn to shreds within a moment of being spotted by another creature dwelling in the depths of this oblivion."
Sef sighed and decided to abandon questioning his darker half any longer, but he turned only to see Dark Sef had mysteriously reappeared to block his way, still grinning evilly at him as Sef realized that his imprisonment here was about to get far worse.
"Going off? So soon? But I haven't had the time to exact my revenge upon you yet..." Dark Sef said, conjuring up some wayward shadows from the ground and forming what appeared to be a small replica of Sef himself from the metaphysical substance. He watched with a startled gasp as Dark Sef crushed miniature creation of himself in his hand and the darkness dispersed.
"Revenge? You were the one who hunted me remember? If something wasn't done you would have killed me!" Sef shouted in his defense, though knowing how thickheaded he could become sometimes he knew this was going to travel right through Dark Sef. As he had expected, his defense didn't change his dark emulate's mind at all, and Dark Sef began to approach.
"I was your own creation. My intentions are justified considering that you are far too weak to even comprehend the powers you have obtained through Wepwawet, and your physical strength leaves even more to be desired," Dark Sef ridiculed him, and Sef growled angrily as he was insulted, but found himself unable to wield said powers as Dark Sef seemed to have mastered.
"I didn't even want to create you in the first place. It was an accident you even came into being. Now either help me get out of this place or I'll do it on my own," Sef said declared, somehow scrapping up more bravery than he thought had ever existed within him. But once again Dark Sef laughed, this time so darkly that Sef felt his blood stand still in his veins.
"You don't seem to grasp what's to come; I'm not going to aid you or simply ignore your presence here Sef; I'm going to eliminate you!" suddenly a fiery energy emitted from the palm of Dark Sef's outstretched hand, and Sef only just dodged the onslaught against him. He screamed briefly as his leg was injured, red and raw now with burns, but before he could even notice this he was back onto his feet and fleeing for his very life.
The heat was so thick and rampant that it was hard for him to make it very far before he was weary, his entire body drenched with sweat and his flesh entirely crimson with the overwhelming heat. He couldn't hear any footsteps following along from behind him, and for a moment thought that Dark Sef had either decided not to pursue him or just wasn't as swift as him.
But he was sadly mistaken when the black earth before him suddenly severed, and a crevasse opened and nearly swallowed him as he came to a sliding halt at its jagged edge, staring down into the boiling stream of magma streaming far, far below. Steam rushed up and seared his eyes, and his writhed and fell backwards attempting to rub away the pain of the simmering ashes.
Dark Sef hovered high in the air, staring down hatefully upon the being from which he had been born. "You threshed me aside like some sort of plague. How could you simply discard a part of yourself in the manner through which you did to me? I am part of you whether you are willing to accept it or not, but I am far more capable of surviving than you. We wouldn't want to make Mr. Darwin wrong in his theories about the weak now would we?" he added tauntingly at the end, gathering another shimmering orb of some unknown energy in his hand and preparing to bring it down upon the child.
Sef had managed to open his eyes again, feeling the sting of the immense heat that surrounded them when suddenly he saw the gleaming light coming from high up into the air. He gasped and drew back as he realized Dark Sef was preparing to attack, but felt too terrified to even move.
'I think I've just invented some strange, new form of self-destruction...'
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"C'mon Wepwawet, I know I'm not Sef and don't have the blood of the ancient pharaoh within me but can't you make an exception?" she pleaded, but still nothing came forth.
She was fleeing independently of Chow now, running beside him swiftly as he took sparse moments to block the paths of the pursuing Shadowkhan. Already they had blockaded countless doors and other passages, but the Shadowkhan would simply dematerialize and slither through the flaws of their barriers like they were nearly nothing. Their crimson eyes followed their every movement, and they couldn't seem to shake them off their obvious path up to the roof.
"We can't risk getting on an elevator to the top; they could corner us if we do," Chow muttered to himself, watching as the Shadowkhan simply seemed to leap through the walls they concocted out of whatever lied in their path. Jade agreed; the elevator shaft was teeming with darkness, allowing for far more Shadowkhan to be born.
They instead reached a labyrinth of iron-grating stairs that served as an inner fire escape, running up them swiftly and looking for any signs of their allies. They hadn't seen the other Enforcers at all since they had split up earlier, and she hoped they weren't dumb enough to try the elevator either. Not only was there an abundant supply of shadows for their enemies to emerge from, but the weight of the three of them and Sef the Statue would probably snap the elevator cables.
"Chow, they're starting to gain on us! A super-brilliant plan on how to get out of this would be much appreciated!" Jade exclaimed, tucking the amulet safely into her pocket until it could be returned to Sef.
"I'm trying to think of something, I don't see you coming up with anything helpful right now though!" he argued back, kicking over a large stack of returned books over so they blocked the door. Jade watched as the Shadowkhan seemed to bleed right through the pages of the texts, as though the ink were melting away.
"Wait a minute! Those Shadowkhan depend on darkness in order to survive and multiply right?" Jade said to him, leaping skillfully over an empty cart and feeling the amulet rustle in her pocket. She prayed it didn't someone work its way out of her hold, or the Shadowkhan would bring it back to Daolon and then they'd be in enormous trouble.
"Yeah, it would seem so considering our own shadows have already joined their ranks," Chow said, raising an eyebrow in questioning in what she was insinuating.
"Just follow me, I think I know how we can get them off our backs long enough to get back up to the roof," Jade said, taking a diverted path down a new corridor, and Chow followed almost automatically, simply praying she knew what she was doing.
The Shadowkhan pursued of course, turning into the dimly lit hallway and looking around for them. But their two forms had vanished, and the only thing within the hallway was a few random boxes of ancient books left to rot under layers of dust.
A single mental thought crossed all their minds. "Where have they gone? They could not have eluded us without the shadows knowing..."
"Hey Shadowjerks, over here!" Jade suddenly shouted, gaining their attention just as she and Chow thrust the switch at end of the hallway.
Suddenly all the lights within the corridor turned on, ever the fluorescent lights activated during emergencies. The Shadowkhan realized the trap too late, and were all obliterated in the blinding light that followed. With an inhuman screech from them, they perished into the artificial lights.
"Score!" Jade shouted triumphantly, running after Chow as they climbed the final stairs up to the roof, making sure for the hundredth time that the amulet was still in her possession.
They scrambled out onto the roof to see the others waiting for them. Everyone breathed a unified sigh of relief to see that they all had made it, and Jade rushed over with the amulet out, preparing to string it back around Sef's neck.
"Don't worry Sef! We'll change you back!" Jade shouted, about to bring the threads around Sef's throat when suddenly she felt herself thrust backwards. She slammed against the edge barrier, the amulet having been dropped at the initial blow.
She opened her eyes to see Daolon Wong, suspended in the air overhead and scowling down upon them as though he were watching cockroaches scurry across the floor.
"You have interfered with my plans for the last time child, as well as these allies of yours!" he declared, the amulet suddenly shooting up from the ground and landing in his hand. Jade felt her heart drop through the roof below as he placed it around his neck, suddenly grinning darkly upon them as the energy of the Underworld was channeled into him.
"You couldn't wield the power of the amulet because you did not place it upon yourself! But with Sef's soul within its Underworld realm it shall make me invincible, and Wepwawet cannot stop my control over it!" Daolon suddenly proclaimed, and suddenly the sky darkened. In the wake of this, the city was suddenly consumed with Shadowkhan it seemed, forming from the darkness that Daolon Wong was now able to summon. Jade and the Enforcers looked helplessly at one another, now neck-deep in serious trouble.
"I would have just enslaved you like all the rest of the world, but instead I feel more like imprisoning you with your little friend. Say hi to the demons of the Underworld for me!" Daolon Wong suddenly said, and suddenly they all let out strangled screams of agony as their souls were wrenched from them as well.
"No! NO!" Jade shouted, but before she could even more, their spirits had all been torn from their bodies, cast into a whirlwind traveling into the core of the amulet. The last thing they saw was their bodies turned to stone just as Sef's had been, with no soul to give it life any longer.
Suddenly the cyclone died down, and the earth was unusually quiet. With a single wave of his hand Daolon sent the Shadowkhan out to begin the oppression of the human race, commanding them silently not to leave one human free in their wake.
"And thus, the world undergoes an everlasting eclipse..."