The hunter became the hunted, how ironic.

By the time the creatures finally found the will in themselves to move again after the pain weakened, all the shadows Myra was able to call upon had arrived, surrounding the duo in a dark mist. They stood there passively, waiting for the Dove to make her move.

The obumbratios didn't seem to notice the little army of shadows and growled loudly, moving in circles around the young woman. Were they trying to impress her? If they were, she had to say that it was a pathetic attempt to intimate her.

At one point, the herd froze, a limb stopped mid-air, before letting out a screech and throwing itself onto the soldier. She lowered the orb in her hand and crushed it in her fist, a smile making its way up to her lips.

"Go." This was the only signal they needed. The shadows in Myra's control lept in the air to crash down upon the mess of obumbratios, knocking them down before they were able to get any closer to the human. Unlike the obnoxiously loud creatures of the darkness, the shades were completely silent, only the whisper of the wind during their movements could betray their presence.

The Dove liked it better like that when it was silent when no one would disturb the tranquility of the starry sky that gazed upon the land of Medax. It should be a crime to shatter such a calm night and like any crime, this one was punished.

This violation of the rule will only be washed by blood and tears.

The murks wrapped themselves around the creatures on the ground like snakes, action calm and collected whereas the obumbratios wailed in the discreet light of the moon, body convulsing violently and goopy limbs trying, to no avail, to grab the shadows.

They never looked good but right now, squirming in pain and howling like a cow being eaten alive, they looked even more horrendous. Rotten orange liquid, a signature of the Second Butterfly, leaked from the dots they had for eyes as to how water would behave when called to the sink.

Their screams were unbelievably loud, most definitely trespassing the 175 decibels bar of standard fireworks, and high like a toddler's as they were being devoured alive by Myra's subordinates. The shadows' mouths clamped around the obumbratios, these dark and nonsentient bodies created by the light, they fed into the obumbrates pain as starving animals would.

They weren't so different now were they?

That had to be expected, after all, light and darkness are two sides of the same coin, one was just deemed bad by the other side.

***

"Good job." Myra praised the returning shadows, patting them on the head as she did so. "I'm not keeping you guys much longer, you can return to your place now." The shades made a motion similar to a nod before crawling back to where they came from, the world finally regaining its natural order for radiance and duskiness.

Myra watched them, wondering why she even bothered talking to them. She could simply motion for them to go away but instead, she talked to them like she was a caretaker. Well, no one heard that, so that was probably okay. Her mother probably wouldn't have let her live this down if she witnessed that but thankfully for her, she didn't.

She turned her gaze away from her minions and looked back to the enemies. The shadows had made quick work of the creatures but what little was left of them was decaying in ever glowing sunlight of dawn, fading away in sparkles.

She crouched down next to the black pound and poked it with her finger. Nothing happened, it just dripped down the digit like how standard fluid like water would. She noted that in the back of her head: When obumbratios are defeated, their corpse behave like a liquid.

After the last droplet of the fiend disappeared, Myra let herself fall on the grass and looked up at the sky. The sun was climbing up the azure wall, getting higher as each minute passed. The sky of a wonderful pink and orange color let it do its thing, the clouds dancing around the glowing orb in a welcoming waltz, so typical of the celestial structures.

While she mostly disliked the gods' creations, she had to admit that the sky was very beautiful, so beautiful in fact that no one suspected the horrors that hid behind that gorgeous face. As a wise person once said, you should never judge a book by its cover.

Myra glanced down at her pockets and dug her fingers through the fabric to feel for her mobile phone. After a few minutes of searching for it, she finally found it buried underneath multiple boxes of tissues. She took out the device and with a click, turned it on.

The screen lit up as her space-themed lock screen appeared in a fraction of seconds, on it in big font, the date and time were displayed in white numbers and letters.

6:45 AM.

She still had plenty of time before going back to Nobilis' Fountain to make a briefing with the rest of the group. Her lips twitch upward in a smile before she tossed her phone back in her pocket to be forgotten until its user had to make use of it again, well, that was already being overused by said user.

"I wonder how the others are holding up." She said out loud, laying down on the former battlefield with a concerned casualty. An elbow was placed on top of her eyelids, vision going blank momentarily.

"Yazan's power is mostly based around offense so he shouldn't have much problem with this..." She remarked, rubbing her eyes tiredly with one hand and yawning at the same time, a tear about to fall on her eyelid. "But Spencer's is the definition of defense... Then if I was going down that logic, I should have had trouble disposing of the enemies... Oh well."

She shook her head before sitting up again, a clear idea in her head. "Maybe I can go see Mom while I'm at it, I won't get into trouble for that right?" She really should get rid of that problem she had with talking to herself, she probably looks insane doing so. She let out a sigh and straightened up again to stand back up. Her body let her know that it didn't exactly appreciate that by sending messages of pain to her brain.

She groaned loudly, joints aching. She forgot about the backlash of using so many shadows at once despite Tenebris having reminded her of its times and times again. Her mentor would have facepalmed, such a shame that they didn't possess any limb that could make a substitute for an arm.

A string of curses was let out under her breath as she forced herself to sit up anyways. Her nerves screeched in protest but she paid no mind to them (or at least tried to, it's difficult to do that when it feels like your whole body is getting stabbed) and kept progressively moving her weight from her behind to her legs. She wobbled for a moment, her head getting little a dizzy as her vision blackened in some corners.

"I hate this so much." She whined, letting out a yelp when she almost went back to square one by dropping to her knees. "Why couldn't the gods make the human body more receptive to divine power? I feel like my limbs are getting ripped off."

Perhaps she was being dramatic but it didn't hurt anyone to be right? It's not like anybody was listening to her right now... right? This wasn't good, she was starting to feel paranoid.

She took a deep breath. Once, twice, it was starting to get better. She dug her hands in her uniform, trying to feel for the vial Tenebris brought her earlier to deal with the divine backlash.

They had told her it acted as a painkiller and she saw no reason for them to lie to her. Plus, she liked thinking that her teacher was trustworthy, despite serving a god but really, who wasn't? You're dragged into one's influence anyways, whether you like it or not.

After a few minutes of struggle and fighting back the urge to just flop back down on the floor, she finally got a hold of the godforsaken recipient. She snatched it quickly, popped it open, and gulped it all down in one go, ignoring the sound of the grass being crushed underneath the button.

A long sigh left her as she let the liquid wash down her pain away, leaving her all tangly and fuzzy inside as she swallowed it.

Truly, Amare's powers were both amazing and extremely weird. No wonder Tenebris kept annoying her about taking the medicine after the fight and not during it. Now she was just hoping she wasn't gonna be the subject to some side effects they hadn't told her about but she doubted it.

Now that this was done, it was time to get moving. She tentatively put one foot before another, shifting her weight between them, and succeeded in not falling like a drunk idiot. Lovely.

She took her phone out again, eyes squinting to look at the big text displaying numbers. She forgot her vision always gets a bit blurry after swallowing one of Amare's medicine.

7:25 am.

What the fuck? That circus took a whole 35 minutes of her remaining time?

A groan left her, life was against her today. Was it not bad enough that she had to fight for a cause she didn't even believe in? She did look pretty badass defeating them but that wasn't the point at all.

Instead of uselessly dragging herself to her mother's home and only having the time to say hello, she chose to use her phone correctly (well semi) and sent her a text.

"Hey, are you still awake?"

Three fading grey dots almost immediately appeared on the left side of the screen, signaling her presence.

"It's difficult to go to sleep at ease when you know your daughter is fighting creatures straight from the Abyss. Especially since they're straight from something."

Myra snorted at the text, she loved it when her mother made jokes like this especially considering she is not LGBTQIA+.

"That is just self-slander mom, you're straight yourself."

"I know, this is why you never got into a fight with me I bet. You're way too scared to pick a fight with straight people."

Myra rolled her eyes in amusement, her mother was amazing.

"Nah, it's mostly because you would beat my ass in two seconds without even trying."

"That is also true.
What can I tell you? That's the privilege of using the sandal. You would understand when you get children.
(Jokes aside, don't raise your hand at your kids, or else I swear I'm gonna give you a beating.)"

"You know I wouldn't do that."

Well, it was unusual for her to act so seriously all of the sudden. Did she just look like somebody who would beat up their kids? She didn't even need to do that for them to get traumatized, life screws with everyone after all.

The remaining time was checked again, she was going to run out of it soon.

"Sorry, mom but I have to go back now."

A sad emoji followed her message. Her mother sent her the same one right after.

"That's fine, I'll see you later then Myra."

"You think they'll let us have our phones with us this time?"

Because right now she felt like she was being treated like a middle schooler again and she did not appreciate it in the slightest.

"I honestly have no clue. I do hope so though, it's pretty quiet at home and it feels really weird not to be woken up in the middle of a nap by somebody complaining about you."

"I know you don't resent me for that :)"

"Oh and Myra? You shouldn't tell Tenebris too much about you. Who knows, you two might not be on the same side in the future."

Any messages left by Myra after that were left delivered as if her mother had suddenly gone back to sleep.

That was... disturbing, to say the least. How did she know about Tenebris? She hadn't talked about them during their conversation and she couldn't contact her during her training either.

What the hell was going on?