Author's Note: Thankyou all for reading this. This has long been one of my more popular fics and I really am going to miss writing it. Sadly that simply cannot continue. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... The Epilogue.

It had been almost ten minutes since the needle had pierced his flesh, it's toxins plunging into his bloodstream.

Already he could feel his tongue and lips going numb. Shadow sighed, up until then his day had been going so well. Through sheer bloody-mindedness he pressed on to the control room as he cast his mind back to earlier events.

"If yurr so tough, sthen why don'cha figh' me then?" demanded Shadow, his breath stinking of alcohol.

"Because I really don't want to beat the crap out of someone boozed up to their eyeballs. It would be bad for my reputation." Quinn explained tiredly, if he were honest he would love an opportunity to beat the crap out of Shadow who had been getting on his nerves the moment they'd met.

"Yurr jus'- jus' – you know, flappy thingy hash wingses." Shadow slurred, he swung a lazy punch at Quinn who blocked it, his patience and ego at their limit.

"I could wipe the floor with you any day. I just choose not to."

"Like I shaid. Chicken." Shadow mimed flapping.

"Fine then, lead the way. I'm going to enjoy this."

From behind them Rashel and Holly shook their heads wearily.

Quinn lashed out, his fist missing Shadow's head by millimetres as he unsteadily staggered out of the way. The furious vampire followed it up with another two strikes as Shadow backpedalled furiously to get away, his arms wheeling madly backwards. Even more annoyed now Quinn swung a roundhouse kick at his head, Shadow swayed out of the way, his arms swinging loosely.

This had been going on for ten minutes much to the amusement of the audience.

"I didn't know he knew Drunken Fist." Rashel remarked.

"Nor did I." Holly said wryly.

The two chuckled lightly as Shadow literally fell over, a foot passing through the space previously occupied by his chest, the vampire hunter rolled staggering to his feet. Quinn continued to press his advantage.

"How long until Quinn realises he's being played with?"

"I don't know, Shadow's got been playing off his ego and pride since he got here, he's wound tighter than a spring, possibly not until your boyfriend actually starts taking this seriously."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Whatever, vamps, just watch the fight."

"Vamps?"

"Leech is a bit insulting and vampire takes too long to say."

"Wow, concerned for a vampire's feelings, you really have done a U-turn."

"Just shut up and watch."

Meanwhile Shadow was getting bored. As he stepped unsteadily backwards to avoid another lightning fast strike he swung his arm loosely backwards, transferring his weight the his weight to his back foot. Now coiled he struck, bringing all the force of his forwards momentum, uncoiling his his striking hands and the driving power of his legs into a single blow.

The strike went straight through the unprepared Quinn's guard, the was a crunch of breaking ribs as Quinn was thrown backwards by the strike.

Struggling to breath he was unable to defend himself as Shadow fastened a hand around his throat.

"You're dead, I just killed you. Remember that next time you start getting complacent." He said coldly.

Having ended the fight with a single blow Shadow got to his feet. Leaving a seething Quinn to wait for his ribs to heal.

Happy with a job well done Shadow proceeded towards the girls pausing once to swing round and uppercut Quinn, stopping him mid-charge.

"Also never fight angry." Shadow sat down, no trace of his drunken act left. "So how's Daybreak doing these days?"

"You mean other than the part where our best fighter is unconscious on the floor?"

"Yeah."

"Fine money wise but the political pressure is really starting to show on some of us."

"But not you?" Shadow inquired.

"I don't get involved in the politics just the killing."

"Well that's -"

Aislinn's voice came blaring over the intercom. "Shadow to the control room. Shadow to the control room. We have a situation up here. Code Eleven-HS."

"Fuck." Shadow set off at a sprint.

Rashel turned to Holly. "Eleven-HS?"

"Don't look at me, I'm convinced they make them up as they go along."

Wearily Shadow staggered into the control room, most of his skin felt numb and he was struggling to stay on his feet. It was twenty minutes since the poison had entered his bloodstream, gratefully he sank into the chair.

"Computer. Execute Security Response Omega." He said quietly, it had always been a personal source of pride that the main computer would respond to some voice commands.

Thirty seconds later a cup of tea trundled it's way along a small conveyor belt built for just that purpose, a waste of money perhaps, building a conveyor belt to transport a single cup of tea in it's life but Shadow had always insisted that when he finally died it would be with his usual quirky style.

A few seconds later music began to play throughout the facility. Shadow's favourite tracks or one's he'd deemed appropriate for the occasion.

"Us...us...us and them... them... them..."

"And after all we're only: ord-inary men."

Shadow smiled, the song was a long time favourite and it felt good and in many ways fitting to hear it one last time. Lost in memory lane he almost failed to notice the door to control room opening.

As soon as Shadow opened the door he was confronted by a hail of bullets. Not a single one of them hit.

Grinning he stood in the doorway, his blades still sheathed on his back, a stalwart silhouette glaring out at the night. Knowing that he was completely invincible for the moment he took the time to examine the bullets on the floor, each a crumpled shell of metal.

"What kind of evil magic is this?" demanded an annoyingly familiar voice.

"Ah Vicky, as short-sighted as ever I see. No magic I assure you."

"Liar, we saw it you stopped the bullets, what are you some kind of freaky vampire-witch hybrid?"

"I am as I have always been. I am Shadow, Bane of the Night World." He said simply.

"You can drop the act. We know you're working with them."

"Them? Do you have any idea how paranoid you sound? Who is this mysterious 'Them' of yours, pray tell?"

"Vampires! We know you're in league with them, we've seen then coming and going from here for weeks."

"In league? Get over your superiority complex, please, for all our sakes. Has it ever occurred to you not all Nightworlders are murdering sociopaths? No, from your incredulous expression I would guess not."

"I guess I was wrong." Vicky conceded. "You aren't in league with them, just brainwashed."

Shadow suppressed a smile, good old Vicky, give her two add two and you could guarantee she'd end up with five every time.

"Well anyway, feel free to camp out here until a patrol turns up."

"Wait!"

"Why should I?" Shadow asked coldly.

"Because we can just wait you out, you can't stay protected in there forever." Vicky, mistakenly pointed out.

Shadow sighed dramatically. "Very well. What are your demands?"

"Hand over Quinn, any other vampires or werewolves in the building and the traitor Rashel to face righteous justice."

"I see. I will capitulate to none of those demands. Good day to you." Shadow turned on the ball of a foot, not even flinching as the roaring gunfire failed to meet him.

"A forcefield?" Rashel demanded incredulously.

"Indeed, you are here to see what we have been doing with the money you kindly gave us, this is one example."

"How long can you keep it active?" She asked, intrigued.

"Only a day I'm afraid, we have to cycle down the fusors once a day and it takes both to run the forcefield. Given the cash we could probably keep it going indefinitely."

"You don't need a sales pitch with me. You're already going to get my recommendation for a new budget."

"You have our thanks. Ash, I want you to monitor Vicky's group while I give a tour of the facility."

"Roger that boss."

"Now this way please, we'll pick up Quinn on the way."

"Now this is the energy weapons lab. Admittedly one of our least successful projects." Shadow said, gesturing at some vaguely gun-like lumps of metal.

"Now Holly and I have developed two types of energy based weapon. A plasma accelerator and a laser pulse weapon. The plasma weapon superheats iron then expels it at super-sonic speeds using a series of magnets. Think of it as a small railgun. Sadly we haven't found a way to give it rapid fire without melting the barrel so it's a maximum of nine shots a minute. On the other hand if you ever want to get through a door or similar it's ideal."

Shadow picked up one of the guns, a bulky handgun and turned it on. "Now it takes about thirty seconds to cycle up initially. It is currently melting the iron in the secondary chamber, once that is done you need to turn off the safety, which will cause a small amount of iron to be deposited in the primary chamber where it will be superheated, this should take about three seconds so make sure you do this before you get into a firefight rather than during. Now the chamber is made of a special type of ceramic so it should be able to to hold the plasma, this ceramic is where most of our budget goes. Ok, the gun is now ready to fire."

Shadow took aim at a ballistics gel target and fired, there was a vaguely blue streak as the target burst into flames, the entire chest cavity incinerated by the expanding ball of plasma. Shadow looked behind him, Rashel and even Quinn were looking suitably impressed.

"Ok." He said picking up a lump of metal. "Here's your clip, each of these is roughly a hundred shots due to how much the metal expands when heated. The battery should last over a thousand shots before it needs replacing and that's ignoring the solar cells built into the weapon. Now moving swiftly on we have the pride and joy of this lab."

Shadow picked up an assault rifle. "Here we have the Mk7. PLR. It fires a half second, high energy infra-red pulse. To avoid too much diffusion of the charge we've had to really amp up the power and the majority of this gun is actually just a focusing array. Instead of clips you'll need power cells, the ones we have here can be recharged through solar energy or even plugged directly into the power grid, the important part is this bit."

Shadow took aim at another dummy before firing a single shot.

"As you can see the shot penetrates about an inch with roughly a centimetre in diameter. The further you are from the target the less it penetrates and the wider the burn. Now this weapon does come with a rapid fire mode which gives results like so." Shadow pulled the trigger, each shot burned it's way into the chest of the dummy, most of them practically on top of each other. "As you can see it's soundless and has literally no recoil, however it isn't like the lasers you'll see in films, it's completely in the non visible spectrum, good for stealth but you'll need to stay aware of where you're shooting."

Shadow passed the gun to Rashel who briefly admired it before emptying the power cell into the dummy – practically reducing it to liquid.

"Now onto the next lab."

"Now this is the bioweapons lab, while you are both familiar with our anti-vampire poison I'm afraid we have had no lucky reproducing variants for other nightworlders however the lab next door should be far more interesting."

Shadow opened the door to the next lab expectantly and was pleasantly rewarded as jaws dropped.

"Meet the artificial dynamic assault model or ADAM. It's an early model of combat android and has a very limited AI such as you might expect in a games console, which I might add is where most of it's combat knowledge actually comes from. It's still in the early stages and won't be fully viable for at least another decade but it can still perform some basic duties. I will now demonstrate."

Shadow approached the android. "ADAM please stand." The robot stood. "Good now break the table." The android's fist went straight through the steel slab. "Now stand down. As you can see it is still quite effective. I trust this will reflect posit -"

"Shadow! You need to get to the control room. Now!"

He took off at a sprint.

The heap of bodies was probably about ten metres tall. Each one executed without mercy. Women, children and men. Old and young, strong and weak, the infirm and the healthy. None had been spared.

"And so you see. Further insurgency shall not be tolerated." Hunter Redfern concluded, his smiling face leering out from the TV.

Shadow had never felt so angry in his life. His blood felt like it was going to boil and he was having to take deep breaths to stop himself putting his fist through the screen.

He shocked even himself with how angry he sounded. "This ends." he took a deep breath. "Ash, I want you to take the squad and hit as many patrols as you can. Make it clear this is a retaliation, also if you here I'm dead do not try for revenge, they'll be expecting it." Ash stood slowly before Shadow bellowed at her. "What are you fucking waiting for? A signed fucking contract? Move!" She sprinted out the door.

"Well now that's done, Rashel, Quinn, pack your stuff, you need to get back to Daybreak. In the meantime I'll deal with Vicky's bunch."

The smell of burning flesh was heavy in the air as Shadow reshouldered the Mk7. The light easily escaping the forcefield as the incoming fire failed to do anything. Most of Vicky's team had run after he'd literally burnt her face off. Those that hadn't had died.

Job done Shadow turned and went back inside, shutting off the forcefield before closing the door.

It was only him and Holly left now. Planning and plotting.

"It's so much easier now. Just the two of us." Shadow said.

"Yes. It is."

"Hello Holly." Shadow said weakly.

"A cup of tea? How very English of you." She replied cooly.

"So how do you want to go about this? We are after all civilised people."

"I was simply just going to watch and wait."

"In that case pull up a chair and pour yourself a cuppa."

"I'll pass if it's all the same to you."

"The poison seems rather fast acting, I assume a high concentration."

"Indeed."

"In that case I don't have long. Nice choice by the way, tetrodotoxin has always been a favourite."

"I'd hurry with this little speech of yours, like you said, you don't have long."

"Indeed, now you'll find all the arrangements for the funeral on my computer, please follow them."

"Is that it?"

"Pretty much, now we just wait and listen."

They both laid back in their chairs as the music played overhead, and Shadow's life eked away until. "I don't have any regrets you know."

"I know." Holly said softly.

"Last few minutes I believe from the symptoms, it's all I can do not to throw up." There was silence again for about a minute.

"Holly?"

"Hmm?"

"I just want to... to tell you." Holly leaned closer. "I love you."

"I know." She kissed him once on the lips as Shadow finally exhaled one last time and was still as a glistening tear dropped onto his corpse.

Author's Note: And so ends Shadow – again. Sorry if the last bit seems a bit rushed, I had it all lined up in my head but I just couldn't quite type it out. Also my longest chapter ever.