I stood back, watching as Or'do passed through the gate of fog. Before him the Bloodletting Beast loomed, its immense bulk held aloft by two long, canine legs, and two disturbingly human arms. Its terrible visage was an unholy marriage of wolf and man, a human face with teeth like yellowed stalactites. With steps like thunder it advanced, a horrid grin upon its ruined features, wind from its movement rippling through its patchwork coat of coarse hair.

Or'do stood his ground, staring defiantly toward it as he slowly descended into a low, spearman's stance. He clasped his hands before him, then slowly drew them apart, black mist swirling and thrashing between his palm,s hardening into a shaft of shadow around which his steel fingers closed. When he looked into its eyes, it was the beast not he that knew sudden, primal fear. His sclera were black as starless night, his pupils radiant silver, and both burned with hateful fury. He had not given himself to the Dark, he had consumed it. I smiled now, understanding why he had not chastised me. I had given him the reason he needed to pursue greater heights of power as he longed to do.

"Strike hard and fast, Or'do." I thrust a fist into the air. "Let us end this!"

He grinned, and lunged. The monster raised a foul, taloned hand to ward him off, yet his spear pierced the center of its palm, and with a flash as dark as the sun was bright, one spear became a thousand, and the thousand shafts sprang out like arrows cascading from towering summit, their points grinding into the domed ceiling as they passed through the monster, turning its body to little more than scraps of meat hung upon their lengths.

Steam hissed from Or'do's jaws, and I knew the battle he must face inside, the madness that was clawing at his skull, pleading for release. Yet he denied it. His eyes became again those calm pools of blue on white, and the halo of shadow fled his body. Or'do was unstoppable, untouchable, the heir of Darkness just as I was the heir of flame. Together, we rivaled the might of hurricanes. Apart, we would devour ourselves. If that was the price of freedom, of an end to the cycle, so be it.

He was not afraid, and neither was I.