Peepeepoopoo

"Hey, Lilith?"

"What?"

"Remember what I told you three minutes ago?"

"Are you going to repeat yourself regardless?"

Shad huffed from behind her, shaking his head. Or, at least, Lilith was pretty sure that was what he was doing. She didn't dare to look away from the large, inky black ball amassing between her hands. It felt like a pocket of nothing, sucking in all the light it could reach, with only her fingers and will to keep it under control.

Shad had said that this was going to be a nice warm up before the sparing, but she was pretty sure that this would just make it easier for him to beat her to a pulp later.

"I'm going to repeat it until it finally sticks," Shad chided, as if she wasn't struggling to hold what (according to his explanation) amounted to nothing, "You need to relax."

"I am relaxed."

"Ah yes, how could I forget? Tense shoulders, a rigid spine, and two eyebrows trying to merge into one; the very definition of 'relaxed', I completely forgot." Shad muttered, finally walking into view, giving Lilith an almost bored look before pressing down on the forehead of the mask, right between her two eyebrows, "And before you try to lie to me, I don't need to see it to know it's there."

"Yeah, cause poking me is going to help."

"You haven't exploded yet." Shad noted, as if that was some sort of miracle, before snapping his fingers. Lilith yelped, nearly jumping at the sudden noise, "That wouldn't have happened if you were loose."

Lilith shot him a glare, ready to shoot back some sort of snarky comeback, only to have the ball in front of her pop and hiss, "Umm, is it supposed to do that?"
"Huh," Shad murmured, walking around her with a finger tapping at his chin, staring as if Lilith were some work of art rather than a sweaty and stressed mess, "I've never seen it do that before."

"Wow, for some reason, that's not reassuring."

"I wasn't trying to be." Lilith scoffed at that, unsure if he was trying to be sarcastic or not. She was brought back when the ball started to throb, shaking as if it were about to drop, "Stop talking and focus."

"I thought I was supposed to relax."

"One thing's for sure, being sassy isn't going to help you." Shad said, only to stop. His small smile dropped into a frown, eyes narrowed as he took a small step back, "Lilith, you need to breathe."

"What makes you think I stopped?"

"No, I mean, well; shit." Shad muttered, eyeing the orb in her hands, his own shaking ever so slightly at his sides, "You need to calm down before it explodes or something."

"Ah, yes, because telling me that it'll explode is going to help me calm down." Lilith said with a forced smile, teeth grinding against each other as she poured as much sheer mental strength into keeping the ball in place, "Brilliant! In fact, you should have told me that beforehand! I'm absolutely positive it would have helped me to relax long ago!"

Shad didn't need to look her in the eye to know that, if she hadn't been interrupted, she could have gone on for hours. Hell, knowing Lilith, she could have sarcastically ranted for weeks on end.

"I apologize for being late."

Lilith cursed, throwing the ball up straight up in surprise. Before she could even panic, Shad had thrown both hands straight up, catching the ball before it could collide with the ground, before basically pulling it apart. The moment his fingers dug into it, the ball hissed and steamed, a black smoke billowing out until there was nothing left.

Shad huffed, shooting Slender a look as the tall being took a seat, wiping his blackened hands down the sides of his coat, "You did that on purpose."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lilith was still recovering from the sudden shock, a hand pressed against the top of her mask while the other braced against her knees, "Is something wrong, Lilith?"

"No, sir, I just need a moment." While she missed her old one, this new mask did have a lot of benefits that the last didn't; one of which being the new ability to suck in cold air rather than the hot stale breath she was normally trapped in with.

Hell, now that she was thinking about it, she had no idea how she'd put up with it for so long.

"Did you begin without me, Shadow Lurker?"

"We just did a basic warm up." Shad muttered, patting Lilith's back as she doubled over, hands still braced, "Nothing too strenuous."

"Is that so?" Lilith didn't need to look up to know that her every action was being watched closely, as if her boss was waiting for her to drop dead.

"Nah, don't let her fool you, she's just prone to over reacting." Lilith straightened up just in time to watch as Shad dropped his face to her own, placing a hand on the side of his mouth before whispering, "You are okay, right?"

"I'm not dead."

"Good," Shad said quietly, "I'm pretty sure that Slender would kill me if you said otherwise."

"Glad to know how much you care."

"You know it, little princess." He offered one more pat on the back before dropping through the ground next to her. Lilith rolled her shoulders, stretching out as best as she could as Shad reappeared a good ten feet away, "Alright, you ready for a little sparring session?"

"Sparring session?" Lilith repeated, "I thought you said that this would be a light practice."

"About that-" Shad stretched out his arms, doing a few jumping jacks for good measure- "I may have lied to you. Just a little bit."

"...Lovely."

"No need to cry about it, this is all meant to make you stronger." With that Shad snapped his fingers. Patches of grass around him wilted as black overtook them, creating black circles in the ground. Another sharp sound and the patches came to life, with the dead blades of grass whipping about like angry snakes, "You ready?"

"Depends." Lilith shot her hand out, catching the scythe just as it shot out of the ground, "What exactly is gonna happen here?"

"Nothing too big." Shad winked, a grin spreading across his face as he pressed his middle finger against his thumb, "You'll get the hang of it, so don't think too hard, okay?"

He didn't wait for her to answer, black tendrils rising from the dead patches of grass the moment he snapped his fingers. Cursing, she slashed away the tendrils, hacking down whatever got too close.

"That was cheap and you know it." Lilith muttered, all but swatting the things away with the curve of her blade, treating her weapon like a glorified fly swatter at this point.

"Your eye hand coordination is amazing, as usual." The moment those words left his lips, she felt something slither up and around her ankle. She yelped when it ripped her foot out from under her, slowly snaking up her leg as she struggled to get back up, "But you're not too keen on looking around and being observant, are ya?"

"I'd beg to differ, but I'm not really in a position to do so." Lilith finally managed to shake the thing off, a wet chill coating her leg, "That's absolutely disgusting."

"I think you have bigger things to worry about." Too busy to really listen to what he was saying, Lilith continued the duck and dodge dance that she was all too familiar with at this point, bobbing and weaving around the tendrils that shot about. Whatever she couldn't avoid was cut down before it could get too close, the curved blade gleaming against the inky black.

"Someone's a bit of a show off." Shad muttered, flexing his hands before pulling on his index finger. "I take it this is too easy for you?"

"I don't know if I'll like my answer if I'm honest."

"Stop playing around and get on with it."

Lilith had almost forgotten that Slender was still there, tilting her head ever so slightly to the left, watching as Slender slowly took a seat on their "break log". He looked just a little silly, pulling his long legs up in order to hold them close, almost like a child holding their favorite plushy.

Lilith shook her head, chiding herself for the weird image her mind had conjured.

"What are you trying to imply here, Slendy?" Shad said in mock astonishment, only to grin as she spread his fingers out, looking like he was going to play the piano rather than make Lilith work, "Fine, just stop glaring at me with your eye sockets, yeh?"

Before Lilith could react, the ground began to shake ever so slightly. Lilith was holding herself up on the pole as the ground erupted, dirt and dust going flying as the brown haze settled over everything, "Let's hope that new mask of yours doesn't make it too hard to see!"

Lilith's comeback was cut off by a dirt-filled wheeze, one hand coming up to cover her mouth while the other swung her scythe about. Cursing to herself she squinted, thankful that she'd decided to forego the eyepatch for once in her life.

"Not too good when you're blinded, huh?"

Lilith whipped around to the close voice, swinging her scythe down as she did so, only to have the blade dig straight down into the dirt behind her.

"And you're pretty easily thrown off by sound, huh? Didn't expect that, so I guess it goes onto the list."

"I don't know if you know this or not, Shad, but this isn't training." Lilith was all but slicing through dust and air now, trying to figure out where the other Shade was. Not that she was getting very far, his voice seeming to echo and bounce about in the air.

"Also prone to taunting and quick to anger in a situation you're not in control of. Unless, you'd like to contest that?"

Rather than reply and gain a mouthful of dirt, Lilith did her best to keep herself under control. Sure she couldn't see him, but wherever he was, Slender was watching her.

That thought managed to calm her down, er, more like keep a cap on herself. Cause, honestly, a mental breakdown was the last thing she wanted to have right now.

She took a moment to calm herself, cleaning her mind as best as she could. With both hands tightening around her scythe, she slammed the bottom end of the pole down, all of her irritation flying out in waves, taking the dirt and grime with it.

Shad whistled, clapping his hands as Lilith stood there, shoulders shaking from the excess, "I thought you'd keep swinging until you finally batted everything away; nice job."

"What happened to trying to make shadow blobs and ripping open spacetime?" She tried to keep herself up right, but for some reason, she felt like she was about to deflate. Wow, were her knees shaking? She honestly could not tell if her knees were shaking or not.

"Yeah, well, gonna be honest with ya, little princess." Shad scratched the back of his head, absentmindedly kicking up dirt as the black seemingly rose out from the patches in the grass, rising up into an almost solid… black blob. "I don't think that you really learn that way, ya know."

Lilith was about to ask, only to jump back when the ball pulled itself apart into multiple bullet-shaped pellets, circling around her like dark, tiny satellites, "It isn't an insult, I swear. I'm just saying that you're more of a 'throw me into the fire and let me figure it out from there' rather than 'hold my hand and walk me through this all'. You get what I'm trying to say?"

"Yeah, mmhmm, sure." It wasn't that she was trying to brush Shad off or anything, but at the moment, the weird hula hoop of shadows was really starting to weird her out. She wanted to whack them out of the air, but for some reason, each and every one of them looked… foreboding. Like they were daring her to lash out at them.

"Good, glad to hear you're okay with this change." With that, Shad tapped his foot twice.

"Wait, excuse me-?" Before Lilith could ask, the blobs darted about, bouncing off of each other and seemingly nothing. She barely had time to duck and weave around them, eyes going wide when they tore through her hoodie, ripping right through her jeans.

"Less stopping and staring, more working out." She didn't need to see his face to hear his grin. She snuck a shot anyway, watching as Shad waved her off, his stupid smile only making her angrier, "Come on now, this one isn't too difficult."

Her spiteful remark was cut off when one of those stupid things sliced through her sleeve, leaving a thin trail of red in its wake. Cursing, she swung with the scythe, hoping to at least catch one of them, only to watch as the blade cut right through, sliding along as if she'd been slicing through water.

She didn't even have time to formulate a confused yet malicious retort to that.

She felt her throat swell with panic, hands shaking ever so slightly as she tried to will her own turmoil over all of the chaotic bullet hell around her. It worked before, when her life was on the line, and while she didn't think Shad would kill her, he didn't seem to have any qualms about hurting her.

Slender didn't seem to have much of a problem with it, at least.

She felt stupid, really. Doing her best to both dodge the oncoming projectiles while also attempting to will them to stop. It felt like she was fighting two downhill battles, with both of them attempting to fight each other on top of that.

She almost couldn't hear Shad over uproar in her head, unsure of which ones were her own and which ones… weren't.

If she tried to focus, she could make out Shad's lips moving, as well as the sound of his voice, but nothing more past that. She tried to focus harder, only to hiss in pain as something shot straight through her leg.

"Damnit!" Lilith scowled, finally reaching a tipping point. Screw trying to remain composed, this was a time for anger.

She didn't even think, shooting one hand up, as if she were going to catch something flying right for her face. She didn't see the pellets stop, rather, she felt it in her hand. It was like each and everyone one of them was attached to an invisible string, with each end tied around one of her fingers.

In the back of her anger-induced mind, she wondered if this was how Puppeteer felt.

She kinda blacked out from there. One moment, she had the pellets frozen in place; and the next, Shad's running towards her as the world begins to tilt awkwardly to the left. She was caught right before she could hit the ground, Shad's shocked eyes and wide grin the only things her eyes could latch on to.

"Jesus, what was that!?"

It took a moment to understand exactly what he had said, and longer to create some form of verbal response, "...Huh?" It wasn't the best, but at the moment, it was more than she could have hoped to achieve.

She felt like she was drowning in herself almost, choking on a disgusting blend of her own brain. She was all but clawing her way up and out of the mess, gripping tightly to anything solid floating around as she tried to piece together exactly what was going on.

"You don't need practice, if anything, you just need to learn limits." Shad was rambling, his mouth moving fast as it spat words out, which only made Lilith all the more confused, "But, once you do that, think of all the other things you can do! You already have the basics down, but with your level of power and control? You could be an absolute nightmare to fight, I'll tell you that."

Lilith gave him a look. Or, she tried to, she hoped her face understood that she wanted to glare up at him right now. "All I did was stop them." Lilith deadpanned, "What are you talking about?"

Shad's laugh felt only a little forced, more confused than amused, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I asked first."

"You were flying shit around." Shad gestured to the ground around them, Lilith only then noticing how torn up the grass around them looked; like someone had taken a shotgun outside and went crazy, "You can't honestly look around and tell me you don't remember this?"

She shook her head, "Not a clue."

Shad was quick to pull her jacket sleeves up, all the while Lilith just stared at her pale forearm as she slowly caught up to the present, "No discoloration, that's a good sign." He muttered to himself, before finally catching Lilith's eye, "You feeling stupidly winded?"

"Dizzy, but it's not much." Lilith muttered, finally able to stand up on her own two feet. Yeah, she'd been limp in Shad's arms for long enough, "It's passed though, I'm fine."

Shad looked like he wanted to push it, only to back down under Lilith's half-hearted glare, "Okay, okay, you're fine, good. Good… Damn, well, if you really are fine, guess we can move on! Cause, I'm not kidding, you were an absolute monster!"

"Okay, maybe that's not the right way to put it," She hadn't noticed the slight grimace on her face until Shad poked the corner of her mouth, "But still, we're onto something here! I'm sure that, give it a few more hours or so, we should be able to get a better hold on-"

"Enough."

Shad visibly faltered a little at that, turning to give the silent being an odd look, "Really? After all of the progress we've made so far?"

"I'm not telling you both to stop, but I am recommending a break."

For some reason, it sounded more like a command than a suggestion.

"But you heard her, she said she was fine." Shad protested, dusting his knees off before straightening back up, "I believe that we're onto something here, and the best thing to do now is to-"

"Lilith."

"Yes, sir?" She nearly missed her name, having been slowly tuning out as the two bickered.

"Would you like to take a break?"

"I, umm…" In the back of her head, she couldn't help but think that, if haunting people in a forest ever went out of style, giving suggestive questions should be next on his list, "Yes, a break would be nice."

"There you go, Shad."

Lilith could do nothing more than sheepishly smile under Shad's scowl, one that didn't last as long as she thought it would have, "You get 15 minutes. I'm gonna go take a piss."

With that he dropped into the ground, his shadow swallowing itself up until there was no sign of him.

Lilith wondered if that's what it looked like when she did the same thing.

She awkwardly shuffled over to the log, taking a seat next to her boss, hopefully putting a respectable distance between the two. Honestly, she didn't feel as dead as she assumed she would. If anything, after putting herself back together, she felt… oddly calm.

"I know you only agreed to humor me."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand there went the calm.

Lilith opened her mouth to reply, only to have a dry rasp exit. She had no reply to that, at least, none that sounded correct.

"And, while I am thankful for it, I'd like you to answer honestly right now; are you feeling alright?" She was too busy trying to untangle his words to notice he'd shifted closer ever so slightly, almost arching over her. She couldn't help but feel like a bug under a microscope, "Do you wish to see the Doctor?"

Lilith swallowed, cursing her dry mouth, "No, sir, I am alright. I do appreciate the break, but I could keep going if needed."

"...I see." As if it wasn't awkward enough as it was, the silence to follow seemed to hang over her just as her boss was. Lilith's eyes locked on her own quivering shadow, watching as it shifted as if it were a black fire in the wind, on the verge of being blown out.

"And your face?"

"Huh?" Lilith's head whipped up so fast her mask was nearly knocked off, one hand moving to hold it in place while the other grabbed onto the log for support, "Oh, well, it isn't throbbing anymore. So that's good."

Lilith nearly flinched away as cold fingers grazed the back of her hand, gently pushing her hand out of the way before reaching to grasp the side of the mask, "May I?"

"Of course, sir." Not like she could give any other answer, especially since he was already pulling the thing off.

She squinted under the brightened light, only to feel those cold fingers trace over the raised skin on her face, "They do not bother you?"
"...No, sir."

"Good…"

She hoped and prayed to anything that would listen that her face didn't look as warm as she felt, cause regardless of the freezing digits brushing over her cheeks, the closing distance was quickly becoming too much to handle.

"They've healed well." He finally murmured, as if content with his examination before looking over the mask in his hand, "I take it this is Eyeless Jack's work? An older model, by the looks of it."

"Yes, he said I could have it since he didn't need it anymore." She wasn't sure if it was the sudden shift to a conversal air, or if it was the fact that he'd yet to move back; but mad chills began to shoot down Lilith's spine. It wasn't because she was uncomfortable, no, if anything, this was probably the most at ease she'd felt in a long time.

It was that realization that made her feel odd.

Which, in itself, was too much of a paradox for her to think too long on.

"Interesting." He mused.

Maybe it was because she didn't like leaving a conversation like that, or maybe it was because she really wanted to know his opinion. Either way, she couldn't stop herself from asking, especially with the calm fog taking over her head, "Sir?"

"Hmm?"
"Do you think we really stand a chance?"

She didn't need to elaborate, already feeling the dread that rolled off of him. He handed her the mask back, seemingly stuck in his own head as he considered the question.

"What do you think?"

She nearly quipped that she'd asked first, just barely catching herself before the words could spill out.

"I think that…" Lilith murmured, her fingers dancing across the cold plastic of her mask, "I think we have to."

Before she could elaborate, her ears popped. That was her only warning before Shad's hand came down on her shoulder, "Alright, come on, you've had more than enough time."

"Yeah, give me a moment to stand, jeez." Lilith muttered, stretching before finally getting up, fixing the mask back into place as she shuffled back to her spot, "How much longer are we gonna be going at this, anyway?"

"Aww, why do you ask, need another break after walking a few feet?" Shad jested, shaking his head as if he'd just made an inside joke, "We're only going to go for a little longer, okay?"

What Lilith didn't know was that Shad's definition of "a little longer" was really "until the sunsets".

And even then, it wasn't exactly Shad's decision.

"Shad, if I may have a word with you?"

"Huh?" Shad muttered, chest heaving ever so slightly as he straightened himself back up. Lilith was sure that, under that stupidly large coat, Shad was probably more sweat than Shade. Not that she could exactly talk either, a thin layer of dirt coated to her skin, "Umm, yeah, okay, sure."

"Excellent. You are done for today, Lilith."

Lilith made what she hoped was an affirmative noise rather than a raspy gasp for air, giving a half salute as the two vanished from sight.

"How dramatic." Lilith muttered, pulling herself up with a hiss. Yep, no doubt, she was going to be all kinds of sore in the morning.

What joy.

With that thought, she walked in through the kitchen door, too tired to try and see if she could try and drop into her room. It was like she'd just discovered this new muscle, and then proceeded to beat the living hell out of it.

At this point, she'd be surprised if she could send a mug two feet away.

She shuffled up the stairs, the promise of her bed the only thing keeping her going. She felt like she was going to faint on the floor right then and there when she finally pushed her door open, just the sight of her sheets enough to make her knees wanna give out.

She all but dragged herself into her room, about to crawl into the blankets to allow sleep to take over, only to just when a high pitched beeping noise came from her desk, "Oh, fuck me."

She pulled her mask off, throwing it at the wired amalgamation on her desk, hoping against all odds that it would be enough to stop it.

The beeping, surprisingly enough, stopped. Before Lilith could breathe a sigh of relief, a low humming filled the room, soft enough not to travel but just loud enough to be irritating.

With a groan, Lilith pulled herself up from the bed, all but throwing herself at her chair before glaring down the mess. She tugged on some wires with weary eyes, just barely about to keep them open as she did her best to figure exactly where the noise was coming from.

"This is ridiculous," She muttered, angrily tugging at whatever was in her way at this point. Honestly, she was probably doing more harm than good at this point, but she could worry about it when she cared and wasn't just looking for a quiet night of sleep, "Where the hell is that sound even coming from, there's nothing here that should be making that-"

Lilith nearly yelped as the humming was replaced with a bright flash, the monitor threatening to burn Lilith's eyes. She nearly slapped the thing off of her desk, instead shielding her eyes as the light finally dimmed, "No way, now it works!?"
After tugging a few more wires, sure enough, she was getting a live feed from the high school. It cycled through all nine of the cameras she'd planted in the school, something she would try to adjust later on.

"...Huh." Lilith shrugged, leaning forward to turn the whole thing off. Now that she knew it could work, she would be able to use it. When she wasn't half asleep and fighting to stay in one piece.

Of course, that's when the monitor had to switch to the camera at the entrance of the school.

At first she wasn't sure if what she was seeing was real or not, having only caught a glimpse of the familiar figure before it moved on to the next feed, "Huh… No, no, no way that was him."

Maybe it was the need to be sure of what she'd seen, or maybe she just didn't want to leave her chair just yet. Regardless, she leaned in a little closer to the monitor, silently waiting for it to switch back to the right camera.

The moment it did, Lilith shot up with a scowl on her face, throwing herself up as she pulled the mask back onto her face. She knew that she'd regret it tomorrow, but decided to drop down into her shadow regardless, already feeling the ache of this stupid power and all of it's additional bullshit.

Dimitri just had to choose tonight to sneak into Evergreen high school.

One of these days I'm going to write a sentence, run it through Talk to Transformers, and put up whatever comes out. It'll probably be better than anything I come up with.