Dear FFN readers. In the interest of not being banned, the last two thirds of this chapter is only posted on AO3 and dA, given it is riddled with colourfully graphic violence (apparently FFN don't like that too much). The link is in the end notes. Chapter 19 will be business as usual.

A Shadow Void of Form

"Hey!" Marina shouted. She intersected us, a smiling, beaming ball of glowing fluff, zipping around me and Shade. The Silverwing let go of my fur, diving and then lifting up beside her.

"What are you doing!" Shade shouted furiously back.

"Coming with you?" she laughed. "What kind of question is that!"

"I thought-"

"Reunion later, kids!" I snapped, pointing with my chin towards the shadows quickly moving west.

Marina made a small scream. Her voice carried and in my dreary frustration I could've smacked her to shut up for threatening our lives.

I didn't know who would make it there first. Us probably. They were blobs faded by atmospheric haze. Marina shivered, her ears flared, listening. Still too far away to see with sound, to hear at all, but their shape was unmistakable, their forms growing larger as the distance closed.

Shade was properly scared now, so antsy he was fidgeting in the air. We had Marina, we could turn around, continue west. Without warning he took off, speeding towards the cabin.

"Shade, wait!" she cried.

And he was gone.

My wingtips stung. I folded them in, slowing down.

"Marina, ya've always been careful. You refuse to be stupid," I said. "Prey doesn't live by being stupid. Hunters don't live by being stupid either."

I looked beyond her out into the white, unable to meet her eyes.

"Don't be stupid now."

"Where can they go?" she whispered, fear becoming terror. But there was an undertone of fury. "There's nothing out here!"

"They'll want off the mountain sooner rather than later, there's no heat in the building."

"The rock face, then. Until Goth's gone."

"So quit hanging here with me, make them leave!"

She darted off after Shade.

Following at a beleaguered pace, my mother drifted into my memory.

I sensed Shade and Marina's urgency. But not comprehension. They were predators themselves, if strangely in denial. I'd watched them competitively hunt down mosquitoes together and take more than necessary. Yet they are such delicate little creatures there's nothing to leave behind, not even a spindly leg or needle nose. And a mosquito cannot look at you. There's no life in its strange eyes. There's nothing to remember.

Marina suddenly halted and Shade appeared, fluttering with impatience and anxiety.

"They won't listen to me," he sobbed. "They think I'm lying!"

"What? Why!" Marina shouted.

"Maybe, maybe we just draw them off! Let them chase us. That's what Goth wants, right? He's following us, he's not here by mistake."

"No," I hissed. Soon we hovered over the roof. I refused to set down into the stinging stone, already feeling stiff, toes and thumbs losing sensation outside the descriptive realm of pain.

"They'll follow us."

"They won't," I insisted. "Scare them. Try again!"

Shade and Marina exploded into the cabin faster than I could follow, swooping down through the chimney stack and into the open room where they were greeted with all kinds of emotion, angry shouts, sudden hatred, fear and mistrust and disbelief. It was boggling to me. They'd seen me, I wasn't a runt that could be chased off, no Vampyrum were. Shade was trying to explain that Goth and Throbb were jungle bats and more powerful than even me, but different (of course), that they were violent and misled. He threw in their copper bands for good measure and it fell upon closed ears.

I knew they wouldn't kill everyone, probably less than I could count on my left wing fingers; a single person can only eat so much. But who would really want to be in that doomed handful when you could just hide for a short time? Somewhere you wouldn't be dragged out from under? I'd stayed because the fire. There was no fire now. They'd grab some snacks, maybe something for the road if they had the physical energy left to carry a body, and be swiftly gone. Following whatever path Goth must've dreamed.

Catching up, I crawled carefully down to the chimney, protecting my wing from damage.

"You have to believe me!" Shade cried again.

"Leave!" someone shouted back, a crackling voice hoarse with old age. Oren, I thought, and he was quivering with anger. "Your lies aren't welcome here, Silverwing."

"They will kill all of you! You have to believe me! You have to leave!"

"You've already corrupted one bat, you wont another," he barked.

"Don't listen to his lies!" Scirocco snarled. "He is jealous of our bands! Bitter and twisted inside! See why Nocturna has deemed this Silverwing unworthy of her Promise! She recognizes the unfaithful!"

"It's not lies!" Marina shouted. "They're cannibals, they're monsters! We can't stay here!"

"You have to leave now!" Shade insisted. "They'll just foll-"

"Enough! Look at the bat who has betrayed his own kind," Scirocco snapped. "He looked at the sun for his own gratification so that now raptors have closed the skies and hunt everyone who lives off the mountain. Whose selfish actions have already led to the execution of two helpless nursery colonies. This selfish bat who has started a war with the owls!"

"No, I-"

"The moment he is asked to go home to his own colony and out into the war he created, he crawls back to make up this story hoping to destroy our colony!"

"I didn't mean- that's- you have to leave!"

I didn't hear movement. There was less panic being inspired than I'd have liked.

And I couldn't just dive in and eat Scirocco to drive the point home!

(Or could I...)

Arguing was taking too long. Before I could drop in and put the fear of Zotz in them to drive the colony out (at my own expense, as they might very well attack me rather than flee), Shade erupted from the chimney and was dragging on my arm.

We heard Marina scream and he squeezed his eyes shut, not stopping.

"I have an idea!" he said pulling me along the roof, whispering. "I can echo project a human! They'll listen to a human! Through the door."

We swung around, landing in the snow on the other side of the building, the one bordering the window.

I studied the locking mechanism for a second. It was simply a miniature metal plate lacking a lock, and a lever for a door handle. Perfect, or we'd have no chance. I yanked the plate aside and gripped onto the wall just under the overhang.

"Right, okay. Luck's on our side. If we drop on the handle together it might open. Think your projection will be powerful enough cause I can-"

"No, I know what I need to say. I only need to startle them into going. Then they'll see Goth on the horizon and have to believe us."

Hopefully not in a panicked, easily picked off miasma of chaos.

"I know they'll believe it," he said, as if to assure himself. "We'll lead them to the rock face and wait."

Moments later, we were positioned and ready to throw the brunt of our weight into this one task, and pray it would be enough.

I laughed, hovering above the handle, a twinkle of utter glee in my eyes covering over the flare of outright anxiety.

And together like icicles we plummeted.

It was beautiful.

The wind howled and screamed in time to our fall, the door exploding inward with such violence it nearly bounced off its hinges, slamming twice into the wall before stabilizing to an ominous flap.

Shade lurked in a drift while I crouched safely tucked away above the lintel.

They deserved the performance of a lifetime. And through the moon and star light, distraction.

What couldn't echolocation normally see? Many things. As the door slammed once more, thunder crashed in the small cabin, a substance like lightning seeming to crawl over every book, every shelf, every bit of human debris, traveling around the edges of walls, crackling. It illuminated nothing, just a silver bursts of chaotic ugly and consuming sound.

The human Shade spun was simple, a man in a plain shirt and trousers, with short messy hair, someone he must have seen in the city. But still a tad uncanny, not quite right. His facial features were sloped, almost uneven, his proportions a touch warped. He had his hands balled into fists, like the man were ashamed of his three bulky fingers. If looked at too closely, hardly human at all.

The man stepped in through the cabin door, raising naked and muscular arms. Like the rest of him, the limbs were strangely twisted, and so around him I blew a wave of snow, pure sound, lest one see too much.

But Shade's echo wavered, so I set off another thunder crash throughout the cabin. The bats screamed collectively, but it was so delightfully chaotic that I couldn't help myself. I was cackling wildly in my head. It was like being home again, only with a sting of painful memory and panic. But I knew it also wouldn't last long, dizziness had already set in.

"Banded Ones!"

Scirocco cowered as strings of noise licked around his toes, never quite touching him.

"The time has come for us to move on, and I will lead you now!"

"Liar!" Scirocco snarled back. A pulse of sound slammed into my lightning, shredding it to bits and I knew at last with utmost certainty Scirocco's transformation was nothing more holy than a trick.

Who was this guy!

What was this guy!

He was going to hit Shade's projection next, and I sung another wall of noise between them.

"Don't listen to him, it's not a human! It's a heretic's trick."

"No!" the man boomed. "Follow me banded ones! We must leave!"

"We should do as the human says!" someone cried.

"Please!" Marina shouted above the squeaks and screams. I had to pull back. Shade blinked rapidly, fading. Marina dove to the ground in front of Scirocco, flaring her wings and staring up at the colony. "Please," she begged, "Listen to him! The human says we should leave! We have to go while we can!"

Hellebora slammed down beside Scirocco. "They're lying to you! No one can live off the mountain!"

"Leave here and you will die!" Scirocco snarled.

"Stay and you will die!" the human roared back.

"Please! We have to go now," Marina's voice broke. "Just, listen!"

"The Brightwing speaks the truth!" the man bellowed in a voice that shook the very walls. "I have guided her here so you could hear my warning, could hear the Silverwing's warning! I have guided the Vampyrum Nuria so you could see the power of a jungle bat and believe. The enemy on the horizon, they will kill all of you! But I will guide all of you now to safety! Come with me. Come with me into the light!"

It was the final push.

Collectively the colony took to the air, streaming towards the door and into the snow.

Now that I'd pulled back and he was no longer overwhelmed and engulfed with sound, Scirocco rounded on Marina at the same time I heard them, among the panic and the racket of hundreds of wings rushing by. Goth's perfect laugh.

And as the colony at last departed, Shade's echo faded, turning and walking into the cloudy snow.

"Where's Marina!" he shouted as we burst into the cabin together, swerving dangerously through dozens of wings.

I heard a sob and turned around. She was flapping hopelessly, trying to pull her arm free.

"Let me go!"

Scirocco looked angry enough to choke the life from her as he pulled her closer, fangs bared.

"You've killed them, arrogant child!"

The brothers' laughter, although absolutely perfect, echoed inside the chimney. And she was going to die.

Had he not done this, his fate may have been slightly improved. He may have found himself an end just a tad less violent. He may have had time to slip away.

Shade flew at the old bat, claws outstretched ready to tear, wings flaring, and he slashed at his face. Startled, Scirocco dropped Marina and she fell onto her back, blowing all the air from her lungs. Shade flew at him again, this time the Silverwing's talons hit their mark. Shade's infuriated shouts drowned out the old bat's shocked cry. Ignoring Scirocco, he crouched beside Marina as she gasped and choked trying to suck air into her temporarily paralyzed lungs.

Scirocco raised a claw to punch through Shade's tiny chest.

Snarling, I connected with him with such violence he was was thrown across the floor, his blood splattering on the wood grain as my claws tore into his shoulder.

Then lightning cracked around him once more, but in his ears only, now that we were mere hairs apart.

He tried to throw me off and couldn't. I pushed both his arms above his head as he yelped at the slash I'd left in his shoulder, pinning him like a butterfly in grim portrait.

Behind me Shade whimpered and I spared him a glance. He was trying to lift Marina up and onto her feet while she still gasped for air. They were distracted, afraid, not focused on me at all. So I turned back to Scirocco, smiling, needle fangs bared in a wicked smile.

"You should have listened to me, little prophet," I hissed, before leaning in, my breath on his throat, whispering in his ear. "This is where ignorance carries you."

Dexterity fading with panic, Shade finally managed to pull Marina clumsily into the snowstorm the moment Throbb sailed into the open. But as he slammed his shoulder into the door I saw a ball of orange blasted back by a last gasp of wind, separating her from Shade. The door sealed itself with a crack like thunder, the handle's mechanism locking into place. As wind pounded helplessly against the wooden planks Marina disappeared into the rafters. I could hear Shade's fragile little voice. Could imagine his claws tearing helplessly into wood.

And no matter how the mountain's ghosts fought, the last fragments of the colony were sealed in.

In with us.

End Notes

The cabin door closes and you've reached the end of the sane world. Content warnings are posted at the beginning of the chapter on AO3/ dA. You can skip that half but it's not written to be skipped and a lot will be missed. Maybe if someone comments I'll write a summary or something but like maybe two people are reading this so I ain't gonna waste time with summaries unless someone explicitly asks.

AO3 archiveofourown[.org]/works/25660927/chapters/127691569

deviantart deviantart[.com]/strawberridraws/art/Solar-Flared-A-Shadow-Void-of-Form-Chapter-18-986083801