Predators

"Hello, my dear Tessa." Bogan stood up from the throne like chair and took a few steps closer to her.

"How many times must I tell you not to call me that?" Tessa raised her gun and aimed.

"It doesn't matter how many times you say that, my dear Tessa. I won't stop." he taunted.

"When you are dead you will stop." She pulled the trigger. Two shots one through the heart and one through the head. The bullets passed right trough him and into the wall without hurting him. Bogan started laughing.

"My dear Tessa, do you really think you can kill me?"

"I can try and I will continue to try until you are dead. Eventually everyone must die. I will make it my business to be the one who takes your life."

Bogan walked around the table and came closer and closer. He had a frown between his brows and his head was slightly tilted to one side.

"Strange. I can't sens any fear, only anger."

"I am not afraid of you."

"But you should be... My dear Tessa." He stretched out one hand as if to stroke her cheek. She pulled the trigger again. Yet again the shot went trough him and he grinned at her. He lowered his hand and to a grip on the gun.

"You won't need that. It won't do you any good." He ripped it from her hand and dropped it to the floor. She threw a blow against his head. The strike didn't hit, Bogan had grabbed her arm, holding it in a firm grip. He was shaking his head.

"Tessa, Tessa. When are you going to learn that it is hopeless to fight me?"

Tessa tore her arm free and kicked his torso.

"Never."

The kick had hit but Bogan stood unmoved by it's force. He chuckled slightly.

"That will do nothing but tire you."

"We will see about that."

Tessa attacked him with a series of kicks and blows. If it had been a normal person she had been fighting her would have been knocked out. Bogan only yawned.

"Really dear. This is getting boring."

He stuck a hand through the back of Tessa's head, fingers coming out of her forehead. She stopped fighting and went limb, her wide open eyes staring at the bits of his fingers that she could see. With his other hand he stroked one of the marks he had left softly.

"Are you afraid now?" He whispered to her, lips very close to her ear. "You fear to be helpless, to be weak. Not knowing. No clue of what is going to happen. Not being able to calculate the most likely scenario. How does it feel? To be afraid."

When things cleared for Tessa again she had a headache. She was laying on the floor in a rather small cell as far as she could tell. The only light source was a torch on the wall above her. The flickering flame lit up a half circle and outside it lurked darkness. Red eyes shone among the shadows. Tessa sat up without looking away from the eyes.

"So you hide in the darkness like a monster from stories meant to scare children. Are you afraid of shoving you face in the light?"

"No. But it is rater effective way of scaring people." Bogan walked into the illuminated area.

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Keep telling yourself that, my dear Tessa, but I saw it in your eyes. You are good at hiding it, but it was there. You can deny it all you want, but it was there and you know it as well as I do."

"I will kill you."

"Have you ever noticed how like me you are. Your determination, you get what you you want. You are strong, never bends. Shaw might have thought that you only helped him, that he made the decisions, but you controlled him all along and he never saw it. You collects knowledge, stores it and puts it to use. You do what you have to. You are ruthless. Hard. Like me. A hunter. A predator, just like me."

"I am nothing like you."

"But you are, my dear. That is why you will make a perfect pet or even a host for me."

"You have yet to break me. You have tried for years and failed. You can't get into my mind."

"Your control has been slipping lately, hasn't it?"

Tessa stiffened. Bogan noticed it and a crocked smile spread across his face. He continued to hold Tessa's eyes with his. Sitting below him at the stone floor she looked almost as a broken doll.

"Before I couldn't sense you. You could be in a room and I saw that you was there, but I didn't feel your mental signature. Your mind was so well shielded that it was as if it wasn't there. Now I can feel your presence. It is so vibrant, so strong and clear. So delicious."

Before her eyes Bogan doubled, tripled, multiplied. All different, but the same. Past, future, present and parallel. Every single Bogan, in every form he ever had. His true form, other forms, her form, all with glowing red eyes.

"No, no." whispered Tessa, pulling up her knees and hugging them.

Bogan crunched down, his face at the same level as hers.

"What do you see?" he asked curiously, looking at Tessa's unseeing wide open eyes. They focused at him when he spoke.

"You." The answer was so low that he barely could hear it. Yet it made him pleased. It was so very satisfying. His mouth turned into a evil grin, making his face to a cruel mask.

"Let's make you the perfect pet." Bogan reached his hands towards Tessa's head again. His eyes shone brighter. She backed away from him, trying to get away. Looking at her there was almost pity in his eyes.

"Did I break you so easily? That's almost boring." To Tessa's shock his voice was kind and she found that even more frightening than his utterly evil eyes.

~o~

Tessa turned inwards, dived into the core of herself, trying to get away. Occupied herthoughts with trivial things. Focused on the fuzzy, unclear memories from the time before her powers manifested. She went deeper down, chasing the shadow of something.

At first Tessa didn't know what she was following, but the closer she got the more it became obvious what it was. In front of her was Roma, or at least a it was her essence.

"I'm sorry." Roma's voice was the whisper of a ghost. "I thought that you could handle my knowledge. That you could be a vessel for my power. I didn't anticipate that what I gave you wouldn't mold with what you had, that it would push me away."

"But I have your powers." Tessa's mental voice echoed inside the darkness of the outskirts of her mind. "I am just having some trouble controlling them."

Roma's lips trembled slightly when she smiled. "I can see how they slowly are becoming a part of you." Her smile faded away. "Still my memories aren't among yours. I don't want my knowledge to be lost, but when I passed on my legacy to you I didn't think that you would react the way you did."

"You mean that I fell into a coma."

Slowly Roma nodded. "I really thought that you would be able to handle it. I was wrong, your mind overloaded."

"Because I was also processing the memories from my parallel selves. It is likely that my body could not take in any more impressions before it was finished with those it worked on."

Tilting her head to the side Roma answered. "Possible."

Tessa stretched her hand towards Roma. "Take my hand."

Hesitantly Roma placed her slightly transparent hand in the lifelike one. Sparks of blue electricity formed around Tessa's eyes. Roma's shape blended with Tessa's form and they became one.

~o~

"I am not broken." The words and her voice was strong, full of hate. The determination spread to Tessa's face, then to the rest of her body. She rose to her feet, facing Bogan. His grin became wider.

"Now that's my girl."

"I am not yours. I am not anyones. I am only my owns."

"My dear Tessa..."

A muscle twitched in her face.

"I have had it with you."

Tessa took out the necklace from one pocket. Cold still flooded from it, but she didn't notice. In the flames light the ruby looked like a large drop of blood. It hung from a silver chain that was intertwined with Tessa's fingers.

"You don't have a body anymore. You posses people to remain among the living. You are dead. And yet you are clinging to this reality. You placed your essence in a number of objects to give you eternal life. That's what killed you. Wonder what would happen if one of these objects was destroyed?"

"No..." Now it was Bogan's voice that was no more than a whisper. He couldn't take his eyes away from the ruby and followed every small movement it did with his eyes.

"It would weaken you. Make your powers less. Take away a part of your life. Perhaps bind you the the body you inhabit for the moment. Oliver Ryland, how long since you completely expelled his consciousness from his body? You have used it for quite some time. Time to change, or not."

"You can't destroy me!" He bared his teethe like a wolf.

Tessa's words were cold and controlled. She kept her icy calm. "If all was destroyed, so would you be. I will start with this one."

She pulled out one of her hidden weapons and smiled slightly when she saw a shadow of shock on Bogan's face.

"Did you think that I would be so foolish that I would go after you and only bring one gun?" Before he had a chance to answer Tessa shot.

The sound magnified in the small chamber, echoing back and forth between the walls. Fragments of the ruby blasted away in every direction, leaving shallow wounds on both Tessa and Bogan. Through the remaining thunder from the shot was the chime of crystal falling against a hard floor, hitting stone walls and the ceiling.

A black tar like liquid that had been cocooned by the ruby shell didn't shatter with it. It fell to the floor oozing out to fill dents in it or follow the uneven stones, running out over part of the room. Bogan looked like he had been punched. He radiated fear.

"So, how does it feel to be afraid. Experiencing something new wont hurt you. Or maybe it will. It is about time you lost. I think that it is time that you went to the place where you and your likes belong. Hell."

Reality wrapped around them. Turning, twisting, moving, enclosing them.

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Author's Note: This was one of my favorite chapters to write, it was so much fun coming up with all of this. Did you like it. Push the Review button and tell me what you thought. It's always fun to get feedback.