Whispers, alien and sibilant, desperate pleas nigh silent like tortured voices turned thin and hoarse by pain. The sound deepened, revealing itself as the rush of wind over a large body, yet I did not raise my head to follow it. These creatures when reborn, maintained their old patterns. Perhaps they retained their memories, or perhaps these were twins that knew not their impending demise. In either case, the Nurse landed as before, smashing against the earth with a muted peal, the low knell of funeral bells. She raised a heavily cowled face, her features invisible beneath a hood long as my entire leg. Her body, perhaps thrice my height and four times my slim frame's width, advanced with an unnaturally silent gait, as if beneath that voluminous robe lay nothing more than air.

Lightning, dark and swift as a diving raven, lanced overhead and smashed against the hulking beast, flaring with a burst deep and lightless as forgotten depths scorned by life and light in equal and complete measure. When first we encountered this beast, our blades alone staggered it, drove the Nurse to her knees, yet now, now something had changed. Silent still, the monster advanced, four shallowly curved blades glinting as if forged of moonlight set upon midnight hilts.

Or'do wasted no time staring in awe or shock, pausing not even when it turned on him, those four blades becoming a thousand as she swung, turning the air into a patchwork of silvered crescents. With blinding speed they hissed through the air, yet either Or'do had supreme command of his luck, or was far more skilled than I imagined, for when he leaped into the flurry of blades, not one struck him. Twisting, writhing midair, he plunged through her tempest of steel and with a fist of iron clad in dark flame, he struck her. Now, she did stumble, faltering in her rhythm, nearly dropping her blades as the breath was ripped from her lungs in a hoarse cough.

I surged in behind her, my greatsword held level with my shoulder, its edge alight with pewter flame. Crunch! My weapon bit deep into her flank as I passed, pivoting on my leading foot and slashing again, this time cleaving a diagonal line from hip to shoulder, spilling her dark blood across the stones. She lashed out with speed I had though beyond her, two blades closing upon mine, rasping against it from above and beneath, wrenching it from my grasp; yet I readily abandoned it. My fist clenched, and tears of flame dripped from the spaces between fingers of unyielding iron. Her blades came whistling down again, blurring into a ribbon of light, yet I slashed before me with nothing more than my hand, and upon bare wrist caught her sword; the impact shuddering along its length and numbing her arm, nearly wrenching the weapon from her hidden hand. She stumbled back, shocked, and here Or'do saw the opening he sought. The Nurse had not time to react as he lunged, a spear of black flame erupting from his arm. He thrust the weapon down as he passed, punching its keen tip through her calf and pinning her to the earth, wringing a shrill scream from the ancient vassal of Darkness.

Even as the Nurse turned to retaliate, her blades rising to menace him with baleful glint and wicked edge, I surged in, a blow to the stomach rocking her where she stood, tearing her calf in two as she fell back, leaving the bloodied spear standing triumphant in the center of a darkly gleaming, slowly widening pool. Perhaps fear gleamed in her eyes, perhaps sorrow, perhaps even regret, yet neither I nor Or'do would ever know what lay in those hidden depths; as I charged toward the fallen Nurse, my hand closed around the foul spear, wrenching it from the earth in a smooth motion, and driving it through her hooded face with such dexterous fluidity that the weapon became nothing more than a streak of black that cleaved the night and her flesh with equal ease. She slumped, then burst apart in a radiant flare, yet not before I reached deep into my mind, and found within one of many powers yet untapped.

"Coalescence!" The word slipped unbidden between my lips, sending a shudder through the widening, dimming cloud of light that spilled from her broken form. It drew in upon itself as if cowering in fear, brightening as it hardened. The nebula coagulated into a single, milky bead that fell to the earth with a soft clink, and lay there inert despite the roiling tempest of white radiance that prodded from within, tendrils of murk thrashing and coiling like languid serpents in those soft, pale depths. I had taken light from Dark, captured that which would have burned to nothing in this inhospitable realm. Slowly, I would conquer this world, one plane at a time, one creature after another, no matter how many stood in our way.