Hours after he passed out, Taurou awoke from a stupor-like state. He shook the fogginess out of his head and looked around the room of the small cabin. There was no one there. He sat up with a great effort, and he remembered his arms. They stung like hell. He looked at them and the black lightning arcs still pulsated around his arms. He exhaled slowly and touched the symbols on his arms. There was a flash of pain and everything went dark.


Minutes later the darkness disappeared and he found himself outside of the cabin. He saw Master sitting on top of a tree staring down at him. Taurou felt sick-- dizzy, nauseated, and feverish-- but he stood in a combat stance. He knew master was going to do some special training to get him situated to whatever had happened to him. Master cocked an eyebrow at his combat stance and smirked.

OOC; gonna NPC for this thread just so you know

"Taurou... dear, dear Taurou." The shadow mage slid out of the tree, dissaperating into black smoke as he fell.

"Do you know what you are?" Mortimers disembodied voice echoed throughout the woods.

"Do you know where you are?"Mortimer's voice seemed to resound just behind Taurou's head, before becoming distant. Had Taurou turned around he would have seen nothing behind him.

Do you know who you are?" Again the erie voice echoed, alternately becoming loud and soft at the same tie, reverbrating inside of Taurou's mind. Speaking to him in that echoed yet ever changing voice.

"Do you know how you came to be?" Briefly an image flashed before Taurou of an infant in a basket being left with a man in a grey suit. Another man, one in black was handed money before turning away and leaving the child with the grey man. The grey man took the basket and placed the child in it in a small crib, identical to many like itself all lined up along the wall. Pieces of paper on string were hung above the cribs, random names inscribed on them. The infant who was just brought in recieved his... Taurou. No last name.

Just as quickly the scene faded and Taurou was back in the woods. "All this time, you've been training to get stronger Taurou. But for what reason? Surely you had a reason for doing all this... Or were you just trying to give yourself meaning? Immitating those who actually got stronger for a reason?" Taurou looked like a child now, wearing clothes too large for him and carrying a small wooden toy sword. He watched two men fighteach sying that they would be the strongest. And by the end they both were, and the crowd loved them. They fought to survive. They fought to please the crowd. They fought for a reason, pushing their bodies to unknowable limits for survival.

"What makes you so special that you should live, while so many remain unborn? Dead before given the chance of life." Another vision of the orphanage, several years had passed and there was disease spreading throughout the town. Only enough vaccine for half the town. The rest wouldn't be so lucky. Lots were drawn. Half the orphans didn;t recieve the vaccine. Taurou was one of the lucky ones who did.

"Face it, your existance is forefeit. What have you done with your life that makes you worth saving? For what reason do you continue to exist?" A vision of Taurou sitting alone in a library. Reading. Only reading. Doing nothing but researching. Children played outside the window but Taurou remained in doors, in self imposed isolation from the others. Doing nothing to help or harm them.

"You gain strength, but with no purpose. Your whole life has been one long exercise in masturbation hasn't it? You fucking scum. Why don't you just cease to exist? Surely someone else deserves everything you have more? Why not give it to someone a bit more deserving?" A vision of the past again. Taurou remained in the library, there were other children outside... sick and dying for lack of a vaccine. Taurou who had recieved it remained there, sitting in the library. Helping nothing, harming nothing. He simply was, while other were outside the window being robbed of their very being, Taurou remained, a blank slate of nothing.

"You have a choice you know" the voice seemed to whisper. It didn't even sound like Mortimer anymore. The voice was... indescribable, at once soft as a whisper yet blaring as a screech, echoing its own words in a myriad of styles patterns and cadenses. "Let one of them live...let them have a chance to live the life which you have wasted. Why not just give it to someone... with a reason to live."

Taurou couldn't move. He couldn't run, and leave the forest, to get out of this demented space. SHUT UP!! He yelled at the voice in his head. He couldn't move his legs, but his arms worked and he tried covering his ears and shutting his eyes. He could still see the flashbacks and could still hear that dark, menacing voice.

Finally, after hearing the last of what the voice had said, he stopped fighting. He stared blankly into the forest's depth. What purpose do I have for getting stronger? He thought to himself.He then then saw the one person he had ever cared for. And she cared for him. It was another scene, a flashback. They talked all the time and he actually enjoyed her company. Then one day, they went to Ostia for the tournament, and they had a great time. After they watched the tournament, they went to get lunch. In the middle of lunch, there was a terrorist attack. The restaurant was blown to bits and the terrorists came out of the rubble, killing all the people who were eating there.

The terrorists were from the demon tribe. The were using really high leveled magic arrows. They saw his loved one, and attacked her. They fired off magic arrows at her, but he tried blocking them with his being. Most of them were blocked by her barrier, but one broke through all of them and through his shoulder, into her chest. She died then and he saw the demonic man laughing as he fell to his knees.

He saw the name plate on his armour, Terchiin Aldora. That was what he fought for. To get strong enough to kill the bastard who killed the only person who mattered to him.

Hear that Master!? That's why I train to get stronger!! To kill that son of a bitch!!

"Good... if I was actually your master." It seemed as though Mortimer had appeared in front ofTaurou, but somehow it wasn't Mortimer. The being was a grey muted version. Mortimers purple hair was grey. His red eyes were now black. Even his usually colorful dress shirt was now grey as well. The being spoke again "I am not your master. I am you. I am your shadows. I am your darkness. I am the part of you which you have rejected. And I am the black lightning. All I needed to come out was true shadow. And now that I have that, I will be using the body from now on."

The trees seemed to fall and the world became black. Only the grey Mortimer and Taurou remained, seeming to float on nothingness. The Grey Mortimers hand crackled with black electricity, his fingers straight like a knife, the grey Mortimer plunged his hand into Taurou's chest and seemed to grip something, trying to pull it out. "[b]The body WILL be MINE. Now give me your heart already![/b" Taurou could feel the grey being try and wrip out his heart giving tug after tug. Still not realising where he truly was.

He felt his grey self jam his arm in his chest. It hurt, like it was actually happening. He coughed and expected blood. There was none. He definitely felt pain though, and his body was now covered in the arcs of black lightning. Bastard.. He said in a pained voice, grabbing his other self's arm. He felt the lightning course through him, but he didn't care. He wanted this bastard out of him. He tried his best to pull out his counterpart's arm, but it wouldn't budge. In fact, his grip got tighter. He stopped struggling to pull the arm out, and tried something different.

Poen a dioddefaint, fulgoris gladius! He didn't get the results he wanted. Instead of the spell cutting his counterpart's arm off, he felt a great surge of pain through him as the spell erupted inside of him. He screamed out in pain but didn't give up hope, yet. He tried different spells and all with the same result. Pain. After a while of pulling at the arm and failing with his magic, he gave up and embraced the grey counterpart.

Suddenly Taurou awoke. He looked down at himself and to all appearences he seemed the same. He was exactly as he was when he had passed out though his arms no longer burned with black lightning. Everything seemed the same. The walls, the couch, his hands, absolutely everything was as it was when he had last fallen asleep. Yet somehow he knew that something inside of him had been brought to the surface, that something he had locked away for so long had come out, and now stood next to him in his mind, no longer pushed to the back and hidden under a thousand empty memories and thoughts. Now it was reight there, right next to him. Glancing briefly at the mirror on the wall, Taurou saw it. The grey Mortimer, looking back at him with a half smile-smirk. "Good to see you... other." it said smiling broadly yet menacingly.

What the..!? He gasped backing up away from the mirror. I'm... I'm imagining things.. He shook his head and went to grab a drink. He passed the mirror once more, and caught a glimpse of the grey master in the mirror again, still staring into the room, with the same smirk. Taurou turned to the mirror and touched his hand to the glass. He bit his lip as a shock of pain shot up his arm. He took his hand off the mirror and held his arm. He looked from the mirror down to his arm, and saw that the black lightning had gone sporadic. There were small arcs of the lightning that suddenly flared to whole strikes and slammed into the ceiling, into the floor, and into the mirror.

The grey master was laughing at the display of panic Taurou was in. The lightning struck the mirror once more and Taurou felt the pain stop, and the sporadic lightning strikes stopped as well. He looked up at the mirror and saw nothing. Not even his own reflection. He tripped over himself trying to get to the sink for a glass of water but the house was gone and he was in the forest once again.

What the hell is going on!? He turned around to see the grey master once more. And this time, Taurou was going to fight him. He crouched low and focused his magic into his arms. It hurt like hell, but he didn't care. The lightning arcs went awol and the pain stopped. All he could feel in his arms was a small tingling. He punched the grey master with all his might, the black lightning in his fist.

"NO. NO NO NO!" the shadow Mortimer cried as Taurou attacked him striking his chest with lightning. "I will NOT go back inside. I WILL be here. Now let me GO!" THe grey Mortimer shouted and fought against Taurou, managing at least to pull his arm out of his chest. "I am the stronger one I am. Let GO of ME!" Taurou was still gripping the inside of Grey's chest cavity. Charging up his own black lightning, Grey tried to slam his fist into Taurous face. He was vehementaly against being forced back in. He did not want to go back in. And he would die in order to stay in control.

Taurou was releasing as much magical energy he could inside of Grey's chest. He gripped tighter and tighter as more and more magic poured in. You're not going to beat me, Taurou said draining himself of most of his magic energy. His left hand was still charged with that magical black lightning and he punched Grey's face with the lightning, weakening him enough to crush Grey's heart in his hand.

He felt Grey's heart give way under his hand. Looks like I win, he said panting from the over exertion and loss of magical energy. His arms were still that shadowed colour and still had the etchings with the black lightning arcs jumping around his forearms. He was panting, one arm still in Grey's chest, as he started disappearing.

Grey panted s he began fading, slipping into the runes on Taurou's arms. "I may be gone for now" he panted to Taurou. "But rest assured, I WILL be back. You can only hold the darkness back for so long." With that the last of Grey dissappeared in black smoke and folded itself into the lightning lines. It was over. Grey had been beaten... for now. The black lightning was under Taurou's control now. For how long couldn't be said but it was safe to use for the moment.

Taurou had won. And this time he really did wake up. Lying on the floor of the cabin. His victory was great, but the time it would last was unknowable.

OOC; You okay with ending it here?

OOC: I'm satisfied with this thread :P Pretty much what I was aimin' for anyways haha.

Rewards

Alberio: 1 SP and 1 MP.
Pyoh: 1 SP and 1 MP.