Hello! Thank you to DarkAntidote for the review, fav and follow! You, and everyone else, are probably going to hate me at the end of this though! = Enjoy!

Chapter 6

Valkyrie groaned, without trying to get up. "Didn't I tell you it's was a trap?" she managed to say.

"Actually, you said it looked like it was a trap," Skulduggery corrected. "And that's completely different."

She stuck her arm into the air in the direction of the ceiling, saying, "Whatever."

Skulduggery took her hand and helped her to her feet, just as the door they had 'come' though opened. And Abattoir Banal strode in with an unsettling smile on his lips. She got a better look of him. He didn't wear any jewellery she could see, pale skin, a few freckles on his cheeks. He wore simple clothes; black shoes with dark denim jeans covering some of the lases of said shoes, a practical belt, plain V-neck top and a bomber jacket in deep brown. His hair was short. He had a sort of confused look in his eyes as he looked at Valkyrie, like he simply could not believe what he was seeing.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here on this fine day?" he asked.

"Not a lot. Just a skeleton in a suit and a teenager with an attitude. Usual day-to-day passers-by," Skulduggery replied.

"You don't say."

"Actually I do say."

Banal raised an eyebrow, "Excuse me?"

"I said, 'Actually I do say' when you said that I didn't say what I did say. It was rather rude really. I mean, you asked a question, I gave a reply, and you say that I didn't say it. Bad manners if you ask me." Skulduggery said crossing his arms.

"It's a, err, figure of speech," Banal said, confused that the conversation had taken a dramatic twist with such a little amount of words.

"Well, it's not a very good one is it? Because my hypothetical lips are moving and actual words are coming out. These words answered your question."

Banal shook his head from side to side, trying to clear it as Skulduggery continued, and Skulduggery took a sneaky step forwards whilst Banal wasn't looking, "And now look at you. You don't even have the dignity to look me in the imperative eyes as I speak to you. Just why won't you do it? It's really rather simple, just lifting your head a little higher than straight ahead. Everyone else manages it," Skulduggery took another step forwards as Banal puts his hand over his face, "Valkyrie does it, Ravel and Ghastly do it, your friend at the Sanctuary did it. Not hard. Not hard at all. Even the swallows flying south for the winter do it," Skulduggery said suddenly grasping Valkyries full attention.

Skulduggery took a lightning fast two steps and punched Banal in the stomach, lifting him off his feet. Just as he hit the wall, Valkyrie sent a wall of shadows into him. He fell to the floor, with a bleeding nose and his clothes looking like they were sixty years older than they actually were. He looked up slowly, and Valkyrie saw that he was smiling. Valkyrie got the feeling that their opponent was a bit more fruit-loops than she had first thought.

"Damn," Skulduggery suddenly cursed. "It's the pain. Its-"

"Making me stronger. The more you inflict pain on or around me; I will constantly be getting stronger. A little like your Necromancer ring you have, Cain, can gather the death and shadows to be manipulated by you. But more powerful. I can survive a life time on pain," Banal said, and as he did so, a dark red-brown started to leak from the wounds and the blood started to climb into his nose again. "It can heal me. It can sustain me."

Valkyrie looked at him and glanced at Skulduggery, before she could hold it no longer, "That is such a cliché."

"I suppose it is," he said, raising his eyebrows a fraction. "But it's true." He jumped up so fast that Valkyrie and Skulduggery were unable to catch him on his way to the door. He through it open and sprinted out into the hall. They followed him across the landing and into another room. A light turned on, the door slammed shut and Valkyrie was punched right across the jaw all in the same moment.

She fell to the floor, rolling and coming up in a crouch. Skulduggery jumped into Banal's full line of view and Valkyrie took in the full extent of the room as to get into the best position. The whole left and right side of the room was cast into darkness, the light not stretching far enough to reach the wall. The back, front and middle, however, were in a hazy light. She could see Banal holding Skulduggery in a head lock, and the second she did, a red hot fire seemed to coerce through her body, and she jumped straight at Banal, jumping onto his back. Banal's hold on Skulduggery loosened, and he managed get free.

She held onto Banal's back for a few more seconds, while he thrashed and spun, trying hard to throw her off, until he twisted fast, and did a forwards flip, landing on his back, on her. She let go, sucking in a lungful of air. Lifting her head she watched Skulduggery throw another punch, but Banal ducked, and he was half cast into shadows for a second, before an awful screeching sound of a heavy door came and Banal threw himself at Skulduggery, twisting himself and the Skeleton Detective ninety degrees, letting go, bringing his leg up and kicking Skulduggery in the chest.

She heard Skulduggery fall to the floor. She quickly scrambled up to her feet, and looked to Banal who was at the back wall, grinning. He pressed two of the buttons on a small pad that Valkyrie hadn't seen at first, and the lights turned on at the same time as the black, iron prison door closed with another screech. She could see the whole room now. There was only wall on one side, the shadows that were once there, only an illusion of space.
The other side however, had iron from front to back, and six doors. In the first, nearest to the door, there was a corpse, long dead. In the second there was nothing, but the third there was a man with a grey beard and hair, that must have reached his feet when he stood. If he could stand that was. This man was tied up, even though he was in a cell of iron, a lot like Meritorious had been when she had been shunted into an opposite dimension, his hands in chains above his head. He wore filthy rags, but it was the hair that covered most his body really.

It was the next cell over that Skulduggery was in. He had stood up and was right up to the bars. Shaking them, they made a small spark, and he was thrown back, into the brick wall at the back, where he didn't move at all for several seconds. Valkyrie stared at his unmoving body, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, until he groaned and moved his head to the side. She gave a mental sigh of relief.

The second from end was empty, but had defiantly had someone in it at some point, as she could still see their blood splattered across the wall and floor, dried up, from where they had experienced a violent, messy death. The last cell had a person in it, but he was on the floor, smiling, muttering, and rocking backwards and forwards with his hands around his legs.

The man suddenly swivelled his head in her direction, sensing her eyes watching him. He screamed in gibberish, and jumped to his feet, making a right scene. Banal did not enjoy the little loony-show, however, and he started to kick the door and telling the guy to shut up. This man just shouted harder though. Then, like a button had been mentally pushed, he smiled. Then he grinned. Then he had a knife in his hand. Then he started to laugh. Then, as the grand finale, he took the knife and stabbed himself in the heart, laughing and grinning the whole time, like it was fun, and then fell to the floor. He laughed, grinned, and smiled no more; just laid there on the floor with a knife in his chest, and a stain of blood slowly staining his rags.

She looked at the man with a knife for a few more seconds, before removing her view to Skulduggery, who was looking at the man. She was rather bewildered by all that.

"Without wanting to insult the dead, I really need to be honest: that was the most random, crazy death upon one's self I have ever seen. And I've seen a lot of death," Skulduggery said, voicing her thoughts.

Valkyrie tried to move towards the cages, but her foot kicked something on the ground. Skulduggery's gun. It skidded a bit, and then Banal was right there. He picked it up and Valkyrie clicked her fingers, catching a spark and forming a flame in her hand. But then:

"Valkyrie no!" Skulduggery shouted, "Get out!"

"But-" she tried.

"Get out! You promised, remember? Do it!"

She hesitated for only a second, and then turned on her heal and ran out of the door, hearing a bullet miss her head by centimetres.

Told you! Review! I can only get better if you review! I tried putting more humour in(for PCRowan), but the story isn't really giving me the space to do it.

Also, I was wondering for other stories, so suggestions. Not for this one maybe, but just if there was anything you always wanted to read, but can't find the material!

Also, I want you to guess what the secret actually is! Is it power, like the legend says, or is it something else? Guess in the reviews!