Jasper sat on the throne atop the village for all to see. A whetstone ran its way smoothly over steel gauntlets to sharpen the knuckles. Fingers flexed and wiggled to make sure they were still quick on the draw.

The sun finally set over the hill. The pale moon had been out for a while now, casting a glow over the large blade leaning against Jasper's pauldron. A red tint came over the blade, and true night settled in.

The air darkened around the throne. The wide-eyed lunatic materialized on the edge of the landing holding two solid black tomahawks etched with dark-violet symbols that shifted in the moonlight.

The challenger stood there for an eternity. The current champ sat motionless on the throne, chin in hand. Both titans of warfare studying each other for the first move. The first move would dictate the second, and the second the third... and on and on until one of them lay dead.

The air sizzled around Jasper, leaving a burnt out and musky no stinging in his nostrils. A jet black streak of smoke barreled at Jasper's head. He dodged by such a fraction that a lock of hair fell past his cheek, and a tomahawk stuck handle deep in the throne. Temnota dashed right through a perfectly timed straight kick like it didn't exist. The monstrosity stood back to back with Jasper. It put one foot on the royal chair and ripped the axe free.

Jasper turned and caught the solid shadow in the neck with a buck knife. Without a single muscle shifted, the shade's features turned themselves around. Eyes and mouth slid across his head into the opposite of their natural place. Elbows and knee joints broke backwards without a sound or acknowledgment from the owner of said limbs. Tomahawks left black lines of smoke in the path they should have taken to straighten out.

Vile blades swung in a vigorous flurry that human limbs could never hope to match. Jasper gripped Momento-Mori with both hands and expertly blocked every blow. Any scratch had a chance to infect him with the voidling ink that had taken over the townsfolk. Any slight error spelled doom.

Jasper slashed one time, then ran past Temnota and up onto the throne. He kicked off of the seat's back and launched himself the other direction. The maneuver bought Momento-Mori one solid hit.

The shade stumbled to the edge of the platform. With continued momentum, the warrior executed a flawless sweep kick, and Temnota's legs buckled, making him tumble from the pulpit of the throne.

Two axes bit into the edge to keep their master from falling. Instead of dangling from the wood, it swung itself forward into the bottom of the floorboards. A cluster of shadows materialized on the throne, and the shade's cheshire grin stretched wide. Similar to how Jasper had before, Temnota sat with its chin in hand.

They locked eyes again; battling in each other's mind for a play that might work. Jasper let this go for a long time before daring to smile himself and drop down ten feet to the next platform.

He hit the ground running.

Running from the darkness like a child running for the bathroom light at three in the morning. The darker alleyways laughed at his futile attempt. Smiling fangs painted the walls, and clawed limbs grasped playfully at their prey from all shadows. Jasper came to a halt at a small hut and flung the door open. Flame-fly jars and bright white dragon slugs bathed the doorway in light.

The darkness screeched and cowered from the hut. Dozens of clawed limbs fell away and disintegrated in a cone around the door. The room itself had nearly forty jars full of tiny critters and little else.

All was quiet for a long moment, and Jasper began to worry that he had lost Temnota's attention. Then the walls began to bleed star speckled ink. The wooden barrier of the hut split open rapidly from dozens of claw marks. Two axes cleaved holes in the back door. Jagged and splintered holes, big enough for Temnota's eyes to peer blankly into. They lacked any emotion, like the buttons on a sock monkey.

As the building was torn to shreds all around, Jasper placed one of the white dragon slug containers on the ground and scooped up the rest. He was alone in a dome of light with evil limbs breaking through the edge. One mighty foot slammed down on the thin glass containing the slug.

Crushing a small critter under foot was not a good feeling, but the explosion of bright white light drove away the darkness. The abominations hundreds of limbs seared away and left globs of ink on the ground beneath them.

All was silent again.

Too silent.

A sound like a heavy woodpecker with a steel beak came from the floorboards below. A tomahawk shot up through the floor and fell back down onto Jasper's foot. It was a painful stinging hook that jerked his leg through the floor.

Splinters made shallow cuts across the skin. The thatched roof of the building on the floor underneath exploded from the weight of both combatants crashing through.

Straw and twigs hung in the air all around.

Jasper tossed a dragon slug into the air and shot it apart.

Temnota recoiled from the light and vanished into the wall.

This room was a sharp contrast to the room full of light. Humanoid eyes hung in braids on every inch of the wall and sat on the table and counter in cups, jars, and bowls. When Temnota had run out of neat ways to stash the macabre collection, it had thrown them haphazardly in every vacant space.

Jasper stood immediately, ignoring the pain. Well, trying to ignore the pain. Dazed vision countered the adrenaline and sent a chill down his spine. Once the blurry vision departed, he stepped through the door, revolver raised.

Temnota phased out of the wall of a house next door like a god welcoming himself into the world. Arms outstretched and all. He skipped forward with all of the joy of... a person skipping but skipped strait into an armor piercing bullet.

The bullet did little, but the muzzle flash halted Temnota midskip. Even with the split second effect, Jasper was in the opposite alleyway running.

The plan so far, put simply, was to escape Temnota, but escaping Temnota meant escaping the very night itself. Would it even stay dead if killed while the moons we're still out? Temnota continued calmly strutting after, before vanishing into nothing more than a smile.

The light was dim at the edge of the second floor, and it was pitch black in between the huts where the shade had vanished. Jasper stood near the edge by a broken bridge to the north watchtower. The ground below was neither soft nor welcoming.

A stream of moonlight flashed off of the great sword as it was presented. The Wanderer charged and cut down half-heartedly, knowing the strike would miss. The blade tore through the abomination; leaving a clear line in the smoke.

One axe swung low at Jasper's leg, and the other swooped for his head simultaneously. Jasper ducked and jammed the sword tip in between two floorboards. The low axe met his sword and ripped it out of the floor in a burst of splinters, but it had failed to reach his leg.

With the promise of a fight capturing Temnota's fancy, Jasper abandoned the ruse again. Again turning to leap off of another platform. The ricasso of Momento-Mori cradled the pulley line above to cease falling. Jasper's hand caught the blade on the other side of the cord, and he zip lined halfway to a watchtower hut.

Temnota cut the cable.

Jasper hung in mid-air with hands an inch above the rope. He grabbed it with one hand and swung to a rough stop against the tower posts.

White hot pain lashed through both vision and torn shoulder tissue, but still Jasper held on until numbness entered the arm and sight returned. Momento-Mori was sticking in the ground two stories below threatening to impale him with the point of the pommel, and it had started to rain.

Water hit hand in a heavy drip and so it began to slip. At least it was a controlled decent, albeit with a meager grip.

But Temnota was one with the very night and with hardly a sound or sight he was atop Jasper's tower seizing the hour.

The other rope was cut.

The remaining kevlar protected from impalement on impact, but the sword's pommel would leave a nasty bruise. Despite the slowed decent, something let out a sickening crack beneath him. A splintered forearm came away from the earth dangling at an odd angle, before the pain had even set in.

The flesh where his foot had been pierced by Temnota's tomahawk was starting to turn ethereal, and the wound bled black.

Temnota stood him back up by the neck and let go to watch as one would a tortured bug. Jasper put one arm up and shifted weight onto one leg like a crane. For the sake of mocking, the ever fracturing mass of shadows put up its dukes like it had learned old-timey fisticuffs from a cartoon.

It threw a haymaker at Jasper's exposed side, and he bobbed back expertly. Jasper connected with a hook and an uppercut and quickly covered up again. Temnota's smile peeled at the stitches threatening to burst. Jasper hit again, not managing to wipe the smile from its face.

Still, the force of metal gauntlets on metal bones made a sharp and blunt noise. Temnota not only staggered, he fell straight to the dirt.

The darkness all around stood up, laughing in his head, "Impressive!! I've never had a mere mortal knock me down with their bare hands."

Several shades all around the clearing contorted in on each other and split apart. A dozen smiling men surrounded him dripping oil blacker than night. They let their long claws out and stood around laughing in his mind. It was slow antagonizing laughter, like the laughter of your classmates in that one dream we all have. The dream where you're the star in a school play, you came in naked, forgot how to sing and everyone is watching.

Jasper's fingers wrapped around the blade near the middle to wield it as if it were a smaller blade, a one handed blade. With a quarter step and a full spin his sword arched through a chunk of the crowd. The voidling color made a fan of droplets behind the swinging blade.

The laughter intensified. Jasper swung again and again... and again. The night air raged all around, struggling to birth abominations as fast as they were put down. The faces grew more contorted with each version as if they were slowly giving up, but the laughter continued.

A .45 caliber shot rang out against Temnota's metal skull and the laughter ceased. Temnota was finally mad and it was easy to see from the hideous way it grimaced. Slick silver blades and needles protruded from every section of his body like a pufferfish made of metal. Once there was nothing but a spiky mass of chrome, Temnota began to swell.

Jasper ran for cover behind the watchtower. Metal rained down over the field like a volley of arrows. Spikes of metal eviscerated the posts holding up the watchtower. Jasper parried aside one that made it's way clean through the wood. The tower began to tilt and sway.

Jasper was a deer caught in the headlights. At first the tower was in no hurry to fall, and then it came barrelling down to meet the ground with the determination of lovers embracing, but Jasper was in between them.

He blinked once and the sky was blotted out by the chaotic rain of wood and steel.

He blinked again and was lying in a pile of branches and straw.

The tower lay collapsed at his feet with puffs of sand and dust billowing around, but the roof of the hut had hit him full on.