Hi everybody! It's great to be back. Just finished a new fanfic" Walking With the Shamed", hope you enjoy the one-shot (it's a Dead or Alive fanfiction, a game I just played recently and greatly enjoyed- once I finished laughing about boob movements, anyway).

So! Let's get to reviews, shall we?

Tiger5913- Tiger! (flying hug) Oh, I love this woman. Ponder ponder ponder... (has sudden mental image of Tiger having a very Pooh-like moment of rubbing her head and saying" Think, think think. Think, think think.") Oh well. I'd love to say "ponder no more", but unfortunately, pondering seems to be your fate as of late. Hope this chapter does something for you though, my wonderful Keniko loving friend!

And a poem for you, since you seem to have stopped updating A Killer's Seduction. Hope you like it. :)

(Note: Sing to tune of "Let It Snow")

Have you wrote the next piece?

Is AKS a visual feast?
Will you give us just the least?

Let us know

Let us know

Let us know

Have you been in a rut?

Have you switched to writing smut?

Do we have to beat you up?

Let us know

Let us know

Let us know

Are you somehow feeling blue?

Has it fallen like the dew?

Have you given us the screw?

Let us know

Let us know

Let us know

Love ya, Tiger:)

V Guyver- Ah, V Guyver! Good man, nice to hear from you. Let's see... Heh, gotta love the faith a man puts in ya when the first words out of his mouth are "Hey again, let's see where this fic went"... V Guyver has apparently seen his fair share of fics crash and burn... Um, playing mix and match with reviews here, so... next question...

The Unborn thing gets kinda explained this chapter (you are both very right, very wrong, and not quite either... you'll see what I mean in a minute or two, depending on how fast you read...) The Mark does come from the Tabula, but it's witchcraft that summons the Tabula into being, so that is why it seems so odd. The witchcraft and general deviltry that Xion performs is what summons the Tabula into being. As for dancing- well, he is, but until you see what kind of dancing he's doing (hint: it's not the tango or a waltz), I'd reserve judgement for a while...

Glad you like the story type. I have no idea how I can explain this to anyone, or even how this thing could be written... but here it is and there goes that hat, as they say, and I seem to be inordinately fascinated with it. This is a wonderful writing style, and I suggest using it if you have a random fanfic idea that you would like to screw around with. Just remember- avoid my copyright issues, 'kay? ;) (little voice in back: memories, damn it, memories! And I claim 'em!) I was going to start all of us off as just the wind, but then I liked the idea of "ghost beings" floating around and watching everything. Being a voyeur (just kidding, just kidding!), I found the idea fascinating, and so I began writing it like that. I really hope you guys don't mind me taking a break from the characters to focus on us, though, as we are central to what is happening in the storyline and a lot of this hour's flight is going to be dealing with us and what importance we have in the story. Still...

Hope you guys like it!

One last thing. Don't know if I mentioned this before, but in your chapter 12 review, where you mentioned I didn't make the police out to be total villains, THANK YOU. I have a deep and abiding respect for police officers, and they live in a secret world where the worst things happen every day and most of what "serving justice" means is seeing a man you caught for murder get off because the tape you have of his confession isn't "admissable" because you forgot to read him his Miranda rights due to the blood in your face from the cut above your eye where the man resisted arrest at the time you were taking him in. It's a bleak, bleak world out there, and I think that cops are about the only people really worth venerating in our society. Politicians? Yeah, they talk good- but they don't do a damn thing about bringing the bad guy in. And that's really all where it counts, for me.

Probably why I'm shooting for a law enforcement degree myself, in my new college next semester...

You're deaf? Wow, that's cool. I myself have no real physical problems (other than terrible eyesight, though good ol' glasses fix that) but it's a rather interesting fact about you nonetheless. Were you born deaf, or did it happen later? I mean, I know you and Tiger know each other and that she talks a lot, but still...

(sees pissed off Tiger sharpening small claws) Hey, that reminds me! A small sidenote...

I view everyone on the Internet as a physical being in my head. Here's what I see everyone as:

Tiger5913- a hyperactive, mostly smiling cat-woman (oh, come on. Her name's Tiger, people. Tiger! How could I view her as anything else?) who faintly resembles Uriko's beast form from BR3, minus funky kimono (my Tiger generally just wears a loose-fitting sweatshirt and shorts, all white with green trimming, oddly- don't ask me why, green and white are just her colors). Her fur tends to be tiger orange, though once I viewed her as white. Don't ask me why- it's my mind's eye playing tricks on me, not anything else.

Plus, as mentioned above, she has sharp little claws she is sharpening right now. Ooh. Creepy. OO

V Guyver- for some reason, I see this merchant guy in my head. I don't know why, but V Guyver strikes me as this white merchant guy, in brownish red traveling clothes, with a big tan pack full of various utensils and cooking pots hanging off his back (and I do mean big; we're talking taller than he is, here), complete with a big bald head and a somewhat constant "raised eyebrow" look to him. Of course, with my string of luck, V Guyver is latin, not a salesperson, and probably has a full head of hair. Still, I see this merchant guy in my head. Huh. Weird.

Indigo Siren- A veela from Harry Potter (you know, the creepy siren women who turn into fireball flinging harpies?) pop into my head here- and it's Indigo colored. Makes a bit more sense than the way I view poor V Guyver (in my head, at least; you are talking to the man who thinks that a murderous Harry Potter, complete with his own army, makes great sense if written right).

Soundwood- Umm... this one's kind of trippy. I see Soundwood as this massive "force" that is vaguely purple-red colored, and swirls in my mind like a videotape on a black screen. The color constantly twists and whirls and reminds me of the final boss fight in the original "Earthbound" game, where the final boss wasn't a creature per se, but actually a massive, multi-dimensional being that appeared to be 2-D and flat to human eyes. Weird.

Sorry about getting off-track there... (coughs). Oh well, let's get on with the next review!

Indigo Siren: Assuming you aren't spazzing out over me telling you that you vaguely resemble either a lovely human girl or a shrieking bird of death in the preceding paragraphs, I guess I can only say: Thanks for reviewing! I know how it goes when you read a really great story, or just a long one- I've been reading "Snob School" by Kurmoi (a great story- shameless plug here!) and I'm on chapter 28 and I still haven't reviewed yet. But that's only because it's so good.

As for my story, I have no idea why you didn't review for a while, I didn't think the story was all that great... ;)

Glad you also noticed the slight light-heartedness between Stun and Jenny- truth is, neither of their lives are all that great, his being spent as a bug man, hers being spent as a traitor and a spy- and whatever balm they can give each other's wounds is greatly appreciated and reciprocated by them both. It's like they say about hard times- you laugh all the harder so you can keep up with the tears.

Thanks for reviewing!

Okay, with that done, I shall proceed to dodge Tiger's painful little claws (ducks as she swings at him) and write this story. So, with a yelp and a cry as she pokes me in the ass, it's...

"SHOWTIME" (ouch!)

Chapter 15

The Dream Turns Real

Rooftops of Tokyo, Japan, near the Mishiyama Corporation's building, 4:35 a.m., Night of the Mark.

We stand frozen in place, the hell after-image of the gaping jaws and nightmare teeth burned into our mind as we stare at the building that we know as the Mishiyama Corporation but are already hearing a gibbering, foul, deep-fat voice whisper in our ears a different name"Blekhege". We stare, shake, step back slightly as our entire lives seem uprooted as all the world begins to turn around us and we think we're going to be sick and some of us might pass out...

But we are rescued by one who does not even know we are there. Stun lets out a great war cry, throwing his head forward, flinging his arms back, crouching at the knee, a loud, chittering, angry war cry, the rends of his soul coming out into the air, screaming his defiance and his will to live on in the face of everything tha would end it. With a sigh and a laugh, the demon, slavering, laughing jaws recede.. but not before we sense a small shock of the kind of power it wields, and we see more than feel the black bolt of something like electricity that rends through us and leaves us disoriented and in pain. Swinging around and stumbling in our daze, we only barely remember to watch Stun.

We turn in our almost drunken haze, and stare at this creature, this being named Stun, formerly Stephen Goldberg, a scientist we thought we knew well but who has surprised us with this war cry torn out from his very heart. Stun is in battle pose now, shifting to it automatically as his very soul rejected the thing it felt assaulting it; but now, the thing gone, he slowly raises up and shakes himself all over, as if awakening from a dream. Then, looking up, he takes off for the Mishiyama Corporation at a dead run. We don't even move.

Whatever happened to us is too much. We've seen a hell of a lot in this world, and we thought we knew everything, but this... this humbles us. More than the rain on the top of Mishiyama Corp. Headquarters, more than the sense we got last night that Kohryu could see us when he half-glanced at us out of the corner of his eye, more even than the idea we've had all night that there are things going on here at levels we don't even understand and can't even begin to guess at, this thing humbles us. Whatever it was on the top of the Mishiyama Corporation, it could have sucked our souls dry and licked the bones as easily as it could rend Stun's earthly body. It would have gladly done so, if given half a chance- if Stun's desperate, soul-rending heart cry had not reached it first and somehow dispelled it with that weak, chittering sound. We stand where we are and some of us even stumble back; this is where all dreams and reality leave us and we are left only with nightmare. We sit numbly on the cold, frozen ground of this rooftop in the middle of Tokyo; and even as we stare up at the building where all our petty notions of our power and grandeur were stripped from us in two events, one little and one big, we realize something.

Why the hell can we feel the ground?

Leaping up, all of us let out a cry, as we realize that suddenly, we can feel the wind all around us. Our wings flutter lightly in a few small breezes, the rain that's falling on this city touches our skin, and the ground below us is cold to our naked feet. (Those of us with naked feet, anyway; some of us have large, metallic greaves on, but disturbingly, those of us with them on can feel the metal, which is cold enough to make up for not touching the ground, thank you very much). As we sit and stare around at the world around us in wonder and try to figure out exactly what the hell is going on, we notice that a lot of very big, very mean-looking pools of black have sprung up all around us. The world slowly becomes more real as the shadows become more dark.

" Oh hell" one of us mutters. The puddles suddenly split and begin to form into other things. Through the glimpses we get of the shadows that occur every time the lightning that has suddenly begun striking the city (striking so hard and so fast it looks like it's attacking the city below it, and our minds, distracted as they are with events directly near us, drift over to Uranus and wonder if she has finished playing her part in this night), we see things that look like jaws, teeth, biting fangs, darkness, tentacles.

Eyes.

The shadows rush us, and in a few moments we are engaged in our first real fight in this world- though not the last, we are sure- back to back, cheek to cheek, dealing with the shadows with the claws on our hands or the knuckles on our fists. The world slowly turns more and more real to us, and suddenly the ground has weight, we have weight, and the shadows have their own weight also. The ground turns real. Getting slammed against something makes us stop, as we no longer go through it (though, with an effort of will, we find we can force our way through most material, but its sludgy, gooish, like we are swimming through slowly settling concrete), and we feel pain in our new bodies. We engage in battle, now, and all the time we spent watching this night serve us well, as our bodies, which we discover to be alternately athletic and strong, quick and powerful, agile and tough, begin mimicking the combat moves we've seen tonight, as well as other abilities that serve us more well in our somewhat changed form. One of us, a figure that looks much like a gargoyle, swings out a thick, whipping tail and trips an opponent. An almost angelic figure swings its fist down and punishes the monster, sending flaring light out from its suddenly-gone form and banishing it back to the depths of Hell. Another fighter, this one a tall figure, grabs two of his opponents and pitches their shadowy, indistinct forms in the air. With one flap of mighty wings, he launches himself upwards and grabs them both, slamming them into pavement and making light flare through their suddenly disappeared bodies. The shadows fight back, launching out with claws and tentacles and some things we don't quite see but don't quite need to see. One of us cries out as a whipping tentacle blinds them, an eye gouged out from the lashing blade. Another screams as they are slowly dragged into darkness, crying as long strands of black gunk and goo slowly overlay them and drag them towards the great mass of some dark thing, and a few brave souls rush to help our comrade, using mighty claws to hack apart the demon braids that bind the creature to them. When done, they turn these mighty claws against the shadow, and soon it too falls apart in a flash of light. We are thrown, kicked, tossed, and burned in the short time it takes us to fight these things, and we realize that, no matter how fun it looks to be when you are watching it from a distance and are safe and sound, fights are terrible, terrible things to be in the middle of, and our only objective now is to win, to scratch and claw and kick and bite until we have won. The battle goes on for some time before we are through, and even then the last shadow seems to laugh as we snap its neck and end its life. It goes to its grave gurgling.

Although it did not take us much time (a few moments, really, but a long time to us; fights really are longer when you are in them yourself), we are exhausted when we finally destroy all the skittering things around us, and, panting from exertion, we slowly look around for more. In our looking, our eyes turn to the rooftops surrounding the Mishiyama Corporation, and the scene we see there makes our eyes lock in our head.

There, Stun is running, running towards the skyscraper that even now makes us fear. And behind him, following like black trails of death, are shadows that, even as we look at them, seem to smile with terrible grins.

We look at each other, and in a moment of complete and total agreement, we nod. We realize something now. We're not brave, and we're not grand. We're not supermen, nor anything even like that. We're just mortal souls too. And though we may not be noble, we can at least help someone who is.

Let Stun give us courage, for without knowledge of what is happening tonight save that which is deep in his soul, he has shamed all of us in this act of great, sacrificing hope. He knows not what it is that he runs toward; but he knows that he must destroy it, for the sake of all things.

And we, weak beings though we be, will stand beside him and fight for him as we fly throughout this strange, dark night.

We take wing and fly.

-

Rooftops over an alleyway in Tokyo, Japan, heading towards Mishiyama Corp., 4:40 p.m.

We fly over the rooftops, feeling the world shift back into its normal (for us, anyway) state; cold and untouchable, we glide through rooftops and lamps as easy as we would glide through air. Yet we can still feel that feeling of solidity, of realness, in the world around us, and realize that this is but a temporary respite, brought about so that we may find our way to the next battlefield, the next fight. And find it we do; within moments, we have caught up to the shadows chasing Stun, and in a battle which would be stunning if not for its silence, rush them from above. Dropping like slavering demons or avenging angels (depending on the person), we drop out of the sky and divebomb our opponents. Ironically, the shadows never see us coming; much as their brethren surprised us on the rooftop of the small store a few moments ago, our appearance here surprises them, too, and they die without too much of a fight. But their death-cries (which only we hear; even as real as we are- correction, feel we are- we make no sound Stun can hear, nor can he see us; a quick read of his mind in a slight moment of omniscience gained in between fights lets us know that he doesn't hear or even feel anything behind his head, be it guardian spirits or demonic hordes) alert their comrades, and they turn away from their pursuit of Stun, determined to deal with this threat first and then put an end to the bug man who so threatens everything they have worked for. Unfortunately for them, we have other plans- one punch, three claw swipes, and several divebombs later, their not-there corpses are disappearing from the sidewalks and we are flying again.

We catch up quickly to Stun, and fly in a tight packed group over his head, never considering that it might not be so smart to do so. We learn the error of our ways when a large group of shadows, massing on the rooftops overhead (we would have seen them before; but, in our "real world" form, we don't possess omniscience or even partial omniscience: just sending out one lone feeler of thought and sight is almost nigh impossible for us now), leap upon us and send most of us crashing to the ground, one shadow connecting with one of us, then both of them crashing down on the one below that, and then all three falling on whomever is below both of them. Wings break; bones shatter. Those few of us who are still in the air turn back to help, but some of our comrades shout for us to flee; already the dark grows thick around Stun as his invisible protectors are distracted. Fear making our hearts ache, we nod and acquiesce to our companion's request, only hoping we have not doomed them in the process, hearing shouts and screams as our companions turn upon their attacks. We launch ourselves forward, and now adopt a more sensible flight program; spread out, everyone watching ahead, only one vulnerable to attack at a time, keeping watch on both Stun and each other. Shadows leap out of the night, tackling some of us; those behind rescue those in front, those in front rescue those behind. Somehow, the stretch of alley becomes a mile, a thousand foot distance between the here and now, rushing from a past we can't find and a future we can't comprehend. We fly anyway, just fighting now, trusting in this hero who has stood with so many in the bleak darkness of the world. The street alley slowly turns into a tunnel; it seems as though time is bending around itself, gravity pulling us in, and the sky is closer, is on both sides of us, just like the ground is, sky and earth coming up to greet each other and somehow meeting in the middle. Stun runs on, never seeing the memories all around him as we fight from our past to save our future. Soon (though never soon enough; there is not one of us who will continue their lives, both mortal and spiritual, without bearing some scars of this hideous, terrible time, our time in hell, a spent place and a black place that closes in on us as we fly into the corridor of time and space and feel everything leave us like drops of rain washing off our skin as we fight for our lives and for the life of someone else), Stun reaches the end of the tunnel, and as we reach the side of the Mishiyama Corporation we realize that we are out of the tunnel for good now. Darkness still encroaches on us, but now the world has resumed its normal dimensions: sky above, earth below, and the horizon where it should be, far off in the distance, a sober flat point in the distance, instead of close to us, curving as if trying to bind the earth and sky as one. The skyscraper looks unimaginably huge, and as we stare up at it, we realize that Stun is going to change.

He does it in mid-run, leaping into the air and then suddenly focusing, beginning to change into the beast form we know so well, and knows he's more than a bug, more than a man, he's a spirit of ages past, a knight in shining armor, his claws great swords, his outer shell spiritual armor, the jaws of his face the sweeping cowl of an old knight's helm, his feet massive greaves of steel. His wings fly out, and their strangely weak beating is loud in the night; it is the sound of old engines starting up, of Harley Davidsons running at full power, of helicopters beginning their flights. He takes off into the air, and we with him, traveling up the sheer concrete sides of the building in a rush for the top. Stun's mind is clear; what little of it we can still glimpse is focused, charged, energized, filled to the brim with some sort of holy sense that he is right. It's not much, this sense, but it is enough for him, and enough for us. We fly into the night, and as we charge up into the darkness, we stay with him. The rain begins to pour down, and soon it is running off our forms- all our forms, for our former comrades, the ones ambushed in the alley before we really knew what we were doing when we beginning to protect Stun, have caught up with us, and though our wings are ragged and our hearts are weak, we fly on, secure in the knowledge that in this, at least, we will hold guiltless. This night shall not fall through our doing.

We fly up and up and up, and soon realize that Stun can see us; he watches us out of the corner of his eyes, as strange creatures fly up beside him, half-glimpsed in the rain. We see him slowly shake his head and continue upward, not worrying over our presence because, in our eyes as we looked up at him, this glorious hero of this world, he saw not fear or hatred, but kindness and strength. We don't know how much of either we can lend- we kind of use up most of it on ourselves- but the knowledge of our presence here comforts Stun, as he knows he is not rushing into darkness alone. We fly up and up and up, and when Stun tires, we catch hold of him gently and take him up.

We fly to the top of the Mishiyama Corporation, and there we lay him down almost gently. His feet touch the ground, and as he looks up, we turn into a blazing whirlwind behind him, flying all around, a whirlwind of teeth and claws and feathers and hands, all spinning behind Stun. We shall show this Tabula that he stands not alone.

And stand alone he does not; for Xion is up there with him, standing as well, though obviously on the other side of the board from where we lay. Xion smiles at Stun, clicks his hellish teeth at him, and then, in a voice that rankles our flesh even through all we've seen this night, he speaks to him.

" Welcome, Stephen Goldberg" Xion says, his voice thick and choky and dry and hissy all at once. For some reason, there is an underlying hint of a very feminine voice coming from underneath Xion's gravelly one, as though someone were speaking under him, prompting him, almost, in the words to say. It is very distracting, and we are fairly certain we know why we hear that voice- Xion's sister's grave was our first stop on this night, as we may remember- but it is disconcerting all the same. " I knew you would come."

" And why is that" Stun says, having no idea what this thing in front of him is but already feeling that it is very, very wrong. " What are you, anyway"

" You are" Xion says, suddenly drawing in breath sharply and almost hacking it back out onto the air, three times, each time jerking its head forward then back, forward then back, stopping before continuing on after a moment's pause when the hacking subsides" one of us now. One of our kind." It stretches out a hand. " One of the Unborn."

Stun shakes his head. " Huh? What are you talking about"

Xion begins walking forward slowly, but the way he moves is... disconcerting. Men and women have no real differences between them, but there is one subtle difference: the way the body moves when they walk. Men and women are built differently (obvious enough to anyone with a working eyeball) so the way their body shifts as they walk is different. Men have a rolling gait; their heavier shoulders and bulkier upper bodies swing and sway forward as they walk, in a very "side to side" manner that, in exaggerated form, is called the "con strut", for the massive criminals who use it as a form of intimidation. Women, on the other hand, have wider hips and generally lower centers of gravity; for this reason, it is women's hips which tend to sway from side to side as they walk, as opposed to a man, who walks with his arms. As anyone can notice, very slightly built men with wide hips walk like women do, while women with built up forearms often strut like men do. This is a simple, basic fact of life.

Xion is doing both things right now, in something which we are sure is against the laws of physics somehow but is not all that perfectly noticeable: he is walking with his arms swinging out and wide, but his hips are moving back in forth in time to his walking. It is an odd effect, and makes it look as if the entire creature is rippling, back and forth, like a piece of cloth strung out in a breeze and left to flap in the wind. The effect is odd, disturbing, and kind of eerie. Combined with everything else that is out of touch with this creature, we find his manner of walking only reinforces the image of "aberration" in our minds.

" You" Xion hisses, walking forward in that strange, double-strut manner" are just like me. We are both the tormented, ravaged souls of this world. I turned around and found my home here, with the darkness of this world. I found my home in a place where I can let go of everything, not worry and be free." Xion laughs. " You, too, suffer, my friend. You, too, know the pain and the burden of too much knowledge. I was a scientist like you, once, long ago..." Xion stops talking and seems almost to muse for a moment, before continuing with" We could be friends, you know."

" No" Stun replies automatically. Xion shakes its head.

" Please" it says" don't give me the stock answers. I've heard them all. 'No, it's not right, it isn't good, it's something foul'..." she whines in a mock tone of crying pity. " Bullshit" it says, snarling and snapping its teeth. " We both know you're smarter than that, Stun. You're deeper than that. You're not the kind to follow a God simply because He says He's good." She snaps and smiles. " You are the kind who would follow a god who knew what he was doing. A god who doesn't make mistakes."

" Your god" Stun says, raising one eyebrow (or performing the equivalent thereof- it's hard to perform facial expressions properly in beast form).

" Yes" it hisses" my god. My powerful, powerful god. And unlike your God, my god will take care of you."

Stun looks at her and says" You are a complete idiot."

Completely taken aback at his answer, she says" What? What are you"

" I believe in a God" Stun says, the word's coming quickly now, before this thing can step in and stop them. " Yes, I believe in a God, yes. I believe He is powerful. I believe He is mighty. I believe that He could come down and slay you right now, if He so chose. He's allowed hurt in my life, yes. I've been pushed around, yes. Yes, I've been beaten down. Yes, there have been times I've cursed God's name. But you know what? It never was God who hurt me; it was other people. So what do I care? Why do I want to blame someone who wasn't even there in the first place? And as for life... Life doesn't matter anyway. People lose their lives daily, usually over the stupidest of things. People are constantly dying. Why the hell do you think we always revere those who give their lives to others, instead of villifying them for being stupid and casting their life away for someone else? It's because we know that life is only valuable in the losing of it. The more life you lose in giving to others, the more life you gain in your real life, your true life, your spiritual one. I wasn't even Christian before stepping onto this platform, demon, but whatever the hell you are, I stand against it, and that puts me automatically in the Good Lord's camp."

The demon, taken aback, blinks twice, confused. " But-..."

Stun smiles. " You don't get bandaged up by Alice for three years without hearing at least a little bit about God. Heh. Guess seeing you put everything in perspective for me. Oh, and yes, where was I..."

Stun flings out his arm and lightning crackles off of it. Still somewhat shocked and amused by his own conversion to Christianity (part of his mind saying Where the hell did that come from?), Stun launches himself into an attack, not thinking it over with himself because he knows he doesn't need to; and also that if he does then doubt will set in. And it will not even be Stun's own doubt; it will be evil doubt, foul doubt, doubt that doesn't have a purpose or a reason but exists anyway, like a dream you hate but can't help having because it is beyond your control. But if you run forward fast enough, and rush forward fast enough, sometimes you can hear it falling away.

Stun's attack catches Xion off guard. Now caught in a battle with someone it did not think it would have to fight, Xion slowly brings itself around to swinging its arm, trying to catch and claw the insect Zoanthrope as he dashes about the arena, small wings showing off their strength in small little bursts and hops, flapping lightly when he is not using them to keep them warmed up for when he does. We, too, keep our wings flapping, but that is for a different reason; we are suddenly caught up in a fight with dozens of little swarming things that are climbing up the sides of the building, and for once we begin to realize what the defenders of the Alamo must have felt like when the Mexican armies began invading their country. Or what the defenders of Stalingrad must have felt when the Germans suddenly popped up out of nowhere. Or any other place where one very small group is against one very large group. It's never very fun. Robert E. Lee, of course, was a genius at just this sort of thing, and it would be very much his style- a few dozen against what looks like two hundred? Perfect- but none of us are Robert E. Lee and none of us really have the time to go back and flip through his old strategy books to figure out a way to beat the hordes coming at us from below. Really, the only thing we have to do is buy time- if Stun can finish off Xion before we are overwhelmed, he may well end up finishing this story here and now, on a rain-soaked rooftop in the middle of the world, surrounded by more things than we can count. (Their numbers swell by the second. Oh goody.)

We stand atop the roof and begin tearing up pieces of it, flinging them down at the hordes. If these had been flung by Stun or Xion, they would have had no effect; but flung by us they become lethal weapons, and monster after monster falls at our hands. Stun and Xion battle, Stun using his wings to hop about the battlefield, flying in small, deadly bursts that give his bigger form a slight advantage when it comes to dodging blows, Xion using the strange, demonic blades that have suddenly popped out of his wrists and ankles to great effect in carving up Stun's hide. When not caught up in our own battle (the end of which is rapidly approaching as the front line of shadows gets thicker; that's going to hurt when it hits) we watch theirs. Stun hops in a semi-circle, his wings buzzing, dodging Xion as his left foot blade goes flying into the air, Stun grabbing his right arm when the Unborn demon misses and proceeding to jerk and shake him when he does so. Xion goes off balance, and Stun drags him towards him, putting him in a headlock and delivering a brutal twist. On a normal man, that would have snapped his neck. Xion merely screams in pain and puts a hand in the air. The blade flicks out on it, then suddenly closes again, the red edge becoming parallel with Xion's forearm and pointing outwards at the elbow. Snarling, Xion thrusts his blade back into Stun's guts. A massive volt of electricity bursts out of Stun, and there, in that moment, we realize something: this is why Stun is here. This is why Stun has suffered in his life. In this, this one moment, this one important moment, his sufferings gain a value. There is too much electricity in the air. The demon's own magicks have done this, in summoning the Tabula (which, we suddenly notice, is gone. That causes a "Oh, shit" moment for us, wherein we stop, stare at each other, and think thoughts along the lines of "Oh, shit" for a while, but then we notice that the shadows have advanced a good four stories when we weren't looking, and though those bastards started at the bottom of the skyscraper, boy, do they travel fast; we resume our rock-pitching activities and continue watching the fight) and creating a habitat the ravenous demon in it could be comfortable in. Stun is now immune to most of Xion's attacks, and even the worst get deflected off of him; he's absorbing the electricity, he's eating it, and it is making his already fast healing factor grow ten times more powerful than it already is. His attacks are stronger, too; each hit is electrically charged, a thunderclap, and the demon thunderstorm that Xion summoned to this area has become filtered through Stun's own body and turned into Stun's own thunder, his own personal power charge, and the Insect Zoanthrope is moving far too fast for the demon to keep up with. This is a battle Xion is losing, and it knows it.

As Xion attempts a powerful spinning kick, Stun dashes in under Xion's outstretched, twirling legs and grabs him before he can bring down his foot on Stun's head, tackling the thing from below and sending it flying to the ground. On top of it now, Stun proceeds to lay a heavy blow on Xion's face before grabbing his head and once more breaking his neck, this time in a very cool, one handed strike where Stun simply put his left hand on Xion's face, palm on the upper part of Xion's left cheek, thumb pointing towards jaw, and quickly flipped it up. Xion screams again, but this time it is louder; even demons can't take that kind of punishment for long, and soon bucks its body in a crazed attempt to knock the Insect Zoanthrope off. Stun merely grabs Xion's throat and proceeds to bash Xion's face in with the palm of his hand. Xion screams and finally bites Stun, which does make the Zoanthrope stand up off of him... but that's only because he can't toss Xion while he's sitting on him. Punching Xion in the head again to make him let go, Stun grabs him with one hand and spins, chucking the demon across the rooftop and into a small air-conditioning unit. The unit crumples and nearly flattens when Xion hits it. Groggily, Xion gets up, Stun already calmly walking across the rooftop to finish him off with a high-flying toss and maybe an impale on those giant ass jaws of his.

Desperately, it turns to its deadly magicks for help, and even as it begins mouthing the words to a spell, Stun slams the ground with his fist and sends shockwave after shockwave rippling through the earth. The electricity finds Xion and proceeds to cook him. We actually see lightning zig-zagging from spiked tooth to spiked tooth as the demon's maw snaps open and shut. As Stun withdraws his claw, Xion stumbles, looks around,

And suddenly disappears without a fight, in a small poof of white smoke. We, too, give up without a fight; we fly away from the walls as the shadows reach the fourth to last story and grab Stun, not bothering to try to explain to him what we are doing, not bothering to explain that hordes of large, demonic, and mostly invisible shadows are trying to eat us right now, and we fly away from there, away from there, back towards safety, back towards home.

Stun, who has learned, if nothing else, to ignore the crazy things that happen to him, merely sighs in our arms as we drag him towards safety.

We take wing and fly.

-

Whoo! Different, I'd say! Very different! Hope you liked the fight at the end- I did, anyway- and for those who wonder about Stun's "conversion", TRUST ME. I did say this fic was going to be heavily religious, didn't I? Besides, we're fighting demons here. D-E-M-O-N-S. Probably the last thing you'd like to try tackling without the aid of God.

The final attack Stun was planning was his BR3 Rage attack. Not sure of the name...

Hope you guys liked it! R R please!