"You sure this is all right?" Rick asked, dirt tired marks scratched all over his face, Marissa weak in his arms, her brown-blonde hair hanging from her hair like limp noodles. He watched over Lance's shoulder as he finished burying the last dirt on top of their first opponent.

"Yeah," Lance said, tiredly. "That way, no one will get to his corpse and rip him apart more than he all ready was," Lance piqued. He patted his hand on the dirt grave and smiled. "Thanks, old man," Lance thanked the opponent. If it hadn't been for him and his change of heart at the last minute, I'd be dead by now, Lance realized. And so would Marissa. "All right," Lance said, standing back up, filled with energy again. "Let's rest up as fast as we can, and start moving again," Lance smiled, beginning to drag his feet across the dirt, his voice back to normal.

PoVS

Birds began to twitter slightly as the night began to die out, the briskness of the air beginning to dominate everything. Damn it, I can't believe she's coming back, Derek thought as the glass shards pieced each other together again. Damn it… how to get Dylan and Zack out…? He stared hard as his foe returned back to normal, her arms rebuilding, her legs, her body, her head, her eyes… That's it! Derek thought as a light bulb came on inside in his head. His eyes widened in shock to his realization. I can't believe I didn't think of that before! Let's try that then!

"What's that look on your face, rat?!" his opponent muttered loudly as an evil grin spread across her face. Derek was soon getting tired of that smirk.

"Shut up, old lady," he finally talked back to her. With an angry charge, he sent his shadow arm flying through the air again, the limb rushing past the bushy trees. The evilly set fingers crashed through the foe, breaking her into glass shards again. They quickly rebuilt her again, and the shadow arm just struck again, just waiting to break her over and over again into pieces. It gave Derek some satisfaction, yet none at all. My plan's working, Derek thought as he continued to push back the rebuilding piles of glass into the more shadowy area of the forest.

With one final push, Derek sent her into the shadows of the forest, where she finally had the chance to rebuild herself. "Stupid kid, no matter how many times you break me I'll always return as good as normal!" she yelled at Derek angrily, mocking his apparent foolishness.

"Yeah," Derek actually agreed slightly. "But, just because you keep rebuilding yourself doesn't mean nothing happened to you," Derek told her. She put a confused and mocking grin on her face. The painted expression always seemed to be one of disgust and snotty rich girl pose.

"What are you saying, boy?" she demanded equally.

For once, Derek scoffed. "Look at your feet," he pointed out. His foe obeyed with a resistant look painted over her bodily expressions as well as her facial ones. Soon, a shocked expression replaced her resistant one.

"Wha…what is this?!" she demanded with an angry cry, shouting as she tried desperately to move. Her feet wouldn't obey. Up to her forelegs, a sticky, shadowy substance rose from the ebony of the trees around her, and clawed at her as if beckoning her to stay, to never leave and be their friend. Just as if she thought they were crazy, she denied strongly, wildly thrashing about like a fish just caught by a fisherman's hook, realizing it was in deep trouble. The sticky shadows seemed to resist her wants as well, stretching upward from her legs, making it harder for her to move. She almost fell forward as she tried to break free, but each and every one of her efforts was failing.

The shadows continued to stretch forward and soon, they took over half her body. She still resisted somewhat, trying to break free yet not even moving the slightest inch, and all Derek had to do was wait. "I'll get you for this you shitty brat!" she cursed at him. He didn't seem to care. He just gave her a hard look, waiting for the shadows to overtake her. Especially her mouth that was full of everlasting complaints to last the century.

His hopes were soon fulfilled as the concealing shade-over was completed, and his foe's figure was completely enveloped in the tight, shadowy hold. "What are you trying to pull?" the woman cried out, her voice bubbly and echoing from the tight, pulling shadows.

"Stop trying to break free," Derek suggested. "The shadows that are wrapped around you are enforced by three layers, one layer of my Half Spirit's energy sandwiched between two thick shadow layers. Together combined, you trying to break into tiny pieces to reform in another area in that shadow hold would be like a rock trying to release itself from elastic. There's no way you can get out of it," Derek explained.

"Damn it, kid, I'll kill you for this!" the complaining woman threatened. Inside the wrapping darkness, she thought carefully. I never thought a naïve kid like him could figure out a way to stop me from regenerating. Not too bad, but as soon as he launches an attack on me, I'll be freed from this damn prison and my powers will be active again. There was no beneficial purpose to him for imprisoning me like this.

"Just shut up all ready," Derek pleaded, standing comfortably on the dirt ground. He watched the shadowy figure try to burst out, but it seemed to weaken as time passed on. Looks like she's giving up, Derek realized. If not, then… Derek held out a hand. Clasping it into a fist, the shadows surrounding his foe suddenly churned and tightened, stopping any movement of hers.

What's the meaning of this? Derek's foe complained to herself. What's this tremendous amount of pressure added to the shadow? Damn it… Is he going to suffocate me in here? Nice try, I can't die from such a human cause. I'm made of glass, remember? She scoffed in her mind. He'll find out sooner of later.

All right, now that I got her into position, Derek thought, preparing for the next step. As he gathered his Half Spirit's power, the shadows around his foe began churning together, like mixing into a big blow, merging into each other violently. A Shadow Arm rose from the ground, its palm large and threatening, and its fingers creepy and bent. The fingers crawled in front of its unsuspecting victim. The woman lay silently in her shadowy coffin of deviance, unable to move due to the tremendous amount of pressure.

The shadowy hand rose up to her face, its threatening look blinded by the case of ebony holding the foe ever so tightly. Slowly, the fingers began to close around her face, a tight grip around her eyes, as if she weren't blinded enough all ready. And then, concluding it all, it finished it off with a huge closing of its fist, breaking off her eyes and sending the millions of tiny glass shards into the air.

The foe let out an utter cry, a loud screech of pain as the binding shadows released her from the hellish hold and let her live once more. She fell to the ground, bringing her shaking fingers to her face, feeling around her eyes and looking for them, finding nothing. "My- my eyes! You asshole! My eyes! What have you done?"

PoVS

"Can't escape!" the booming voice seemed to circle Dylan. His white hair seemed to be caked with sweat all over, his green eyes filled with the state of panic, frozen. Dylan gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the cries of the booming, godly voice. The orange, blackish pond had ripples rushing through it as the constricting chains bound Zack tightly, his arms wrapped in the metal prison.

"Shut up all ready!" Zack yelled comically, screeching at the godly voice. "You never shut up! Dylan, tell your other voice to shut up!!" Zack screeched desperately. He began to breathe heavily after saying his rounds of "shut up".

"You think I can control it!?" Dylan yelled back, his face just as comical and desperate. As if on cue to his desperate cries, an earthquake began to bloom. The ground first rumbled violently, rattling the chains in the lake as Zack was restrained by the heavy metal. Dylan stumbled on his feet and fell to the floor, crying out as his arms flung in the air without help. "What's going on?" Dylan cried out, his voice drowned out over the increasing tempo of the earthquake. The sound soon became unbearable and the round rumbled violently, shaking the two Minors like a snow globe.

Things flew about in a wild behavior, and the crescent moon above seemed to shriek in a banshee's battle cry. Trees were shaken terribly, their leaves fluttering about, something ominous about them as they fell solemnly to the floor, remaining calm in the splitting earth. Zack tried to speak, but his voice was completely drowned in the crashing earth. Dylan knew it had to be complaints. As always. But he had to admit, it was pretty funny to watch him yell at stupid things.

Suddenly, pieces of the world began to fall apart, even the air. The orange skies and surroundings began to fade, and the wisps of moonlight died carefully, as if it were a life threatening thing to do. Painful yells came from the godly voice, as if it had just been stabbed in the heart, filling Dylan's ears as he tried hard to stay in place on the floor. This earthquake… that yelling… Dylan thought as he was shaken violently. It's not normal… just what's going on?!

PoVS

Back to the real world, Derek watched as he waited for the rest of his plan to take place. It should be working, Derek thought with gritted teeth. He stared hard as the still night remained calm as ever. Glimmering glass shards floated back down to repair her eyes as she continued to cry out in pain.

Suddenly, a rumbling took place, and seemingly out of thin air before Derek's very own eyes, two figures rolled out, churning on the ground intensively as the dirt picked up around them, seeming weak and shocked. Yes, it worked! Derek thought.

"What?" Dylan muttered to himself as he got up, feeling the cool breeze around him. Could it be? he thought carefully. "Where am I?" Dylan looked around and found Derek's friendly, yet glaring stare. "Derek-san?" Dylan muttered blankly, his eyes wide open with surprise.

"About time you guys got out of that illusion," Derek sighed. "I was beginning to think how much longer I would last here."

"Illusion?" Dylan muttered. He seemed confused, but as he began to feel the real things around him, he realized right away what had happened for the past few hours.

"Damn it!" the foe screeched. "You shitty rat! I'll get you for this!" she cried out in an angry complaint as the glass shards finished rebuilding her eyes. She stood up, her teeth chattering silently, her limbs weak and dragging on the dirt floor. She faced the three teammates now, the place where her eyes used to be blank. Then, suddenly, her eyes revealed themselves, opening up from the blank space on her face, as if they had been closed. The demonic stare of her barely human eyes was chilling to look at.

"Who's she?" Zack asked, getting up and taking his hands to pat the dust off his clothes. The Wind Minor's voice seemed finally calm after realizing where he was. He glared hard yet blankly at the woman with the demonic appearance.

"Our opponent," Derek answered with his voice calm as ever. He walked up to his two teammates to make sure they were here for real, and he wasn't actually caught in the illusion again. Of course he wasn't. He all ready far surpassed that kind of thing.

"I'm Kyou, and you got that right, you dumb shits!" Kyou screeched, finally giving her name. "Damn it! It still hurts!" she complained, clutching one of her eyes as she used the other hand to strike the ground with amazing force, towering glass shards emerging from the dirt ground like towers summoned to protect and offend.

The shard towers clattered forward, slowly reaching for the now three man team. "Wait a minute," Zack said calmly. "You're the one who put us in that crazy orange world?" he spoke, his voice rising. He pointed an accusing finger at Kyou, who still clutched one of her eyes that was tearing ever so slightly. His face went slightly comical as he began his accusation. "Do you know how crazy being locked up drives me?! You sick lady!" Zack yelled, his mouth growing ten times as large when he screamed his insults.

Over all his commotion, he didn't notice that his two teammates had all ready jumped away to nearby trees to dodge the screeching shards of glass that were now about to pierce Zack. "Zack-san!" Dylan whined with his almost child-like voice. As Dylan rushed to his tree branch, vines emerged from the floor and wrapped around Zack, pushing him backward and giving him safety as the shards rushed by. As the vines were cut by the shards, they set Zack down on a nearby tree branch, keeping him safe Dylan sighed in relief as he released himself from the panic it took him to keep his cooperative secure.

"Wow! Look at that glass!" Zack shouted in awe, smiling at the sight. "Amazing!" he complimented mindlessly.

Derek sighed. I knew he was going to be a trouble on the team… oh well, he coped. Watching the thick shards sink back slowly into the ground, he examined Kyou closely, making sure he didn't miss one observation.

As soon as her hand moved away from her eyes, he could see that the filled blackness of her eyes slowly moved away, like an eclipse just about to end, revealing the whiteness it had hid for so long. She growled as saliva came down instantaneously down her chin. She gave a hard glare to the three boys. "So it was your eyes after all," Derek muttered to himself. Kyou scowled.

"What should we do?" Dylan asked Derek as the tension began mixing in the air. Oh, how they loved the tension. Dylan's voice was stammering, almost unsteady. It took him a while to get him back to being used to the regular world and not that sickening, frozen orange world. Dylan never wanted to remember it again.

"Just stay back and help me for now until I figure something out," Derek informed, sending a wave of shadows before him rushing past the forest and crashed down on Kyou. She dodged expertly as the crashing black waves looked so real as they imitated real ocean currents. She jumped in the air, and the shadow padded land followed her, rushing darkish limbs up in the air as she began to fall back down. Two or three limbs rushed up the first time, and as she dove back down to the ground, she cut their bodies with a glass blade, moving acrobatically in the air like she had practiced it a million times.

She landed on the blackness wave again, and soared through the air once more, the clawing shadows trying to creep up towards her. Two limbs of shadows came from the ground and rushed at her in midair. That's good! Derek thought. She can't move in midair! This time, I'll get her!

Just as the two limbs raced side by side together for their target and were seconds away from achieving their goal, Kyou immediately sprout glass panes from her back, and molded them in a wing like formation, ducking under the two hits as they rushed past. Shit! Derek gritted his teeth. She can even make glass forms come out of her body! Doesn't matter, he realized.

As the two limbs rushed past her, they were suddenly hauled back, and churned together for one big blast. They reversed their direction to make a sneak attack on Kyou, and succeeded as the blast pierced through her body and made a sickening crack of glass as she broke into tiny little pieces again.

"What the –" Zack cried out in disbelief. Could this be for real? Dylan thought. Slowly, she began to rebuild herself again, the clattering glass pieces putting each other together like a jigsaw puzzle. Kyou was back right away. From the shadow grounds spread small waves of Half Spirit energy and rained like missiles from below as Kyou soared through the air, dodging each one as they rushed past like bullets.

As if being deflected, the waves of shadow energy were deflected back in like a sphere like area, sending them back for Kyou. Come on, hit her, hit her! Derek thought as he tightly clenched his fists, controlling the bullets of shadow intensely. The torpedoing shadows soon got her and crashed through several parts of her body, glass shattering everywhere as she lost her body piece by piece. The first hit kept her suspended in air as many others followed it, a type of overkill as her body shattered into millions of pieces again.

I'm starting to see something… Derek realized. Okay, so she can come from the ground and rebuild herself after any attack. She's immune to the Darkness, and the glass is her body. She can make glass from the ground and seems to rebuild at different speeds depending on where I strike her and the intensity of my attack. Shadow Arm to the stomach will give me five seconds before she comes back. Shadow Arm to the torso, five seconds, attack from behind, ten seconds, and a random circling attack, fifteen seconds, he counted as the glass shards built her back.

"It's useless to try and kill me!" she cried out with a laughing smirk, mocking Derek's efforts.

Derek disregarded her words. So her speed so far averages to about eight and three-fourths seconds. She also seems to rebuild herself starting with two separate piles that the glass shards converge at. When those two piles are done building, she connects those two and grows back into limbs and a head. Either closed spaces or places away from her main body are her weakness. Derek remembered when he trapped her in the shadow coffin and broke off her eyes, which took a long time to rebuild. I say, let's test that…

As she shuffled through the air, a shadow limb from the side of the forest came racing through the air, catching her arm by surprise. "What?" she cried out as her wings wavered lightly in the brisk air. "What're you trying to pull, damn it?" she complained as the shadows wrapped around her arm completely. Damn you! she thought to the team as she brought out her other arm and chopped off the first one, sending many glass shards and wisps of shadows into the air. She growled. That could've been dangerous, she thought through gritted teeth.

Close spaces it is, Derek noted. Just as her arm began to rebuild itself, another shadow arm caught her by surprise from the side, shocking her in a petrifying fear.

My arm… damn it! Kyou thought with narrowed eyes. "Hey!" Derek called out to her.

"What do you want, shitty rat!?" she yelled angrily at him. Her teeth showed signs of glassy fangs in the dying moonlight that couldn't seem to be found. They glimmered so brightly like twinkling stars that poked holes in the fabric of night.

"Close spaces are your weakness, isn't it?" Derek asked with a smile. "In that case, you can't rescue your other arm now from complete destruction while the other one's rebuilding, right?" Derek outsmarted her.

"Damn you, boy!" Kyou shot a string of curses at the black haired boy in her mind as she looked at the tightening shadows enveloping her arm, getting ready to smash it into pieces. She looked to her other arm, and found the glass shards still flying back to it, rebuilding it slowly, as if taking as much time as possible. "Curse this slow-ass body!" she complained once again.

"Your arm's done for," Derek notified. With a hand hung high in the air, clasped into a fist immediately, the shadows around Kyou's arm tightened and began to add tremendous pressure. Soon, the sound of shattering glass and painful shrieks of despair filled the brisk, dying night air.