Two figures stood, immobile as statues, as the mist began to churn about them. One blazed with darkness. The other was wreathed in it.

Time passed.

Then Maien, wearing his mantle, much of his flesh long since replaced by black flames, began to laugh. "Yes! That is it! How could I have so blind for so long?!"

Skin writhed and smothered black flame, as muscle twisted and grew back to the bulk of Maien's prime. Hair regained its youthful darkness, and his bones visibly shone with a lurid glow that was in some way beyond any created color. Folds of darkness rushed in, the absorption of the Mantle staining Maien's new skin in patterns of gray.

Shadow Dio stood silent. Lost in thought. Trapped by memory. Transfixed by enlightenment. As he stood silent, free and with his chaos unleashed, Dio remembered many things.

Shadow Dio remembered that before the death of the Shade Lord, a Shadow had never precisely copied the form of another. They had always left some flaw, often leaving the colors purple-black. Without such flaws, the Shadows became lost in the identity of the other.

Shadow Dio remembered, in the time when he was shifting from street-punk to the form of Dio, SHE came, and placed in him a shard of raw chaos, preventing him from becoming the Aztec vampire completely, as well as providing the power which allowed the Tome of Shadows to trap him in the stillness.

Shadow Dio remembered his unique gestation and birth, and learning from his father, learning more of the ways of the Shadows than they themselves could truly comprehend.

Shadow Dio understood much.

And then he remembered Maien, just as Maien remembered him.

"Do you understand the lesson you have taught me?" The joyous mage took a moment more to study the shard of chaos embedded in the vampire. "Yes, you must. Then you serve me! With you and Everyman as my Apostles of Chaos I will assume the throne of the Mad God and grind down all the Weaver's works! Since you care about it so very much, I shall allow you to be the one who tears apart every tiny speck of meaning and value within the Lands of Shadow! Praise me, for I give you leave to deliver everything you love into torment, and all in My name!"

"I understand the lesson, Maien. And I refuse." Dio reached out to caress the black cloud that surrounded him.

"No matter. Everyman and you shall speak with My voice, and we shall all wield such power that the Great Old Ones themselves shall tremble at our passing! Glorious, is it not!?"

Silently, Dio asked for a knife. A small amount of the darkness became an ornate black blade. All curves and spikes, it was quite appropriate for a Dark and Frightening Ritual. "No, Maien. 'It' will not be glorious because I am going to stop 'it' here."

"You would still fight Me?"

"You may have played me like a pawn, but all along I have been a bishop in another's game. Able to move to where I was needed, but intended for sacrifice nevertheless. Do you not understand?" With a gesture, Dio asked the mist for something that would cut better than the decoration he was holding. More darkness flowed, and the knife became a ring. Dio smiled. "The Great Old Ones would indeed tremble at our passing, but it would not stop there. They would tremble, they would stir, and, as our influence spread, Cthulhu and his brethren would wake!"

Dio slashed his arm across, and a thin line of darkness slashed through the mist, cutting through the hill behind where Maien had been standing. With restored physical agility, Maien flipped over the beam, sliding as if on rails toward Dio, one leg extended in a kick.

There are few ways to more greatly telegraph an attack than to simply move forward with a limb extended. Dio fired a blast from the ring, forcing Maien to twist and spin aside, stopping dead in mid air.

When he looked back, Dio was nowhere to be seen. The answer to this visual riddle arrived on its own. From behind, with a painful impact.

Maien crashed to the ground, settling in a crater made by his own impact. Dio touched down nearby, the ring on his hand returning to mist. "Pathetic. Keep to combat you understand, Maien. Your mind has destroyed your instincts."

"Perhaps it has." replied Maien, pulling himself upright. "But then, I can destroy anything!"

Leaving no time for Dio to respond to his statement, Maien unleashed a barrage of energy beams, each a different shade of crimson, the glowing bones in his arms clearly visible in the glare of his assault. The surrounding landscape began to twist and change, the unstable Chaosgrounds shifting and reforming under the burden of chaos unleashed.

After thirty, forty seconds, Maien ceased, panting, waiting for the cloud of black metallic locusts and spoons to clear, and reveal the distorted remains of his foe.

Then, he got impatient, and destroyed the cloud with a gesture, revealing... the distorted remains of Shadow Dio.

"Up heeeere!" Maien's head snapped up, the voice drawing his attention to Shadow Dio, standing directly above him. Holding a glass of water. "I told you, you're not thinking right for this competition." Upending the glass, Dio doused Maien.

Who fell into the new puddle at his feet, and found himself plummeting past Dio, to smash again into his own crater.

Dio shook his head, slowly. "It doesn't feel right. You pushed me to my limit, you challenged me and, if things hadn't changed, you would have beaten me. It doesn't seem right to squash you because you're slow about letting chaos into your mind."

"What do you mean? How, how are you beating me?"

Dio smiled, and the smile peeled upward, rolling up the chaos of his face, revealing itself, inside-out and inverted. "You said it yourself, Maien. Power, I have enough to compete. Innovation I win. And experience? Have you ever used raw chaos before, Maien? Have you ever fought anyone who did? Your thinking is rigid, and that has turned from a strength to a weakness." Dio placed both hands into his mist, and asked it for destruction. "Last chance, Maien. If you don't do better, this attack will be the end!" The mist that was once his stand and his magic gave him a staff. A long, fluted staff, the bottom weighted for blunt striking, the other end topped by a curved blade, the second point giving making it vaguely harp-shaped, and all of it black.

"Let Death be Reborn once again, Maien! Let death be born in YOU!" Dio dropped far faster than a rock, the blade of the black Glaive sweeping down to split Maien's skull. Dio imagined the look of silent surprise that would be on the two halves of the chaos-mage's face, after the Glaive cut through whatever defense he would try and raise.

Maien wasn't surprised. He snatched up a pebble, and threw it toward the blade. Just before the simple stone would have been destroyed, it exploded into an uncountable storm of tiny sparks, perhaps two feet in diameter.

The Glaive hit the region of lights, and stopped. Or perhaps, it kept going. Maien took his turn to grin. "Even the smallest stone is a universe in microcosm. How long will it take, to cut through infinity?"

Dio raised his right hand from the shaft, and made a fist. "Minor." And sent his hand back down. "NOTE!!" The focused wave of devastation tumbled Maien to the ground. The new small creation was simply gone, and the ground parted in a furrow that stretched deep into the furiously roiling pale mist. Dio took a moment to appreciate his handiwork, then to examine his weapon. And he released it, the black mist pouring forth in clouds so dense it almost seemed to be exploding out of the Glaive. "Destruction is more the bailiwick of the Wyrm." He returned his attention to Maien. "Hmph. Space... distance... these things are irrelevant to Chaos."

"So, you say that, and you say you are the only thing that will stop the awakening of the Great Old Ones?" A grand gesture, arms thrown skyward. "Then let the stars themselves weep at your imminent demise!"

Above them, the writhing of the mist vanished, revealing a glorious riot of stars that Earth could not match, not without leaving the atmosphere behind. For a moment, Shadow Dio was lost in the splendor. In that moment, the sky fell.

The Shadow tried to dodge, tried to reach Maien, but there were simply so many tears of fire that the idea of movement was meaningless. Stellar light blazed everywhere around him, burning at flesh and spirit alike.

And then the pain was over.

Dio rose from the blackened stone, faint gray smoke vanishing into the black cloud that surrounds him. Burnt, but not consumed. Weakened, but not slain.

"You learn, Maien. But you shall learn no more.
I whisper your name in the secret places.
I call upon the rule of three,
and return to you the deaths you have given.
We stand over the boundary of Chaos,
but the border comes inexorably closer,
and from Chaos, the Wyld turns to Balance."

In cupped palms, a black light formed. Slowly, it lifted clear, and began to drift toward the Mage of Chaos. "Wyld Evolution." Dio hardly bothered keeping his satisfaction out of his voice. "It can't be stopped, Maien. It will chase you even back to Earth, to Ningenkai. Or anywhere else you flee."

The spark drifted forward, and Maien backed away, not in full flight, but buying himself time.

With but feet remaining, Maien looked up at the Prince of Shadows. And vanished.

Dio was in motion by the time the sound reached his ears.

An instant later, the Shadow felt a sting, as his opponent's attack slid through the space where his neck had been.

Dio's arm met no resistance, and there was nothing behind him. The chaos-marked Shadow spread his vision out around him, and looked everywhere at once. The spark of black light had drifted slightly back towards Dio, and then began moving to the left. Moving toward where Maien appeared just long enough to survey the battleground.

Vaulting backwards, Dio was well clear of the torrent of energy Maien rained down from above. [He's replacing his physical existence with the sound of his Name. He's avoiding the certainty of his defeat by acknowledging only probability!] The name became nearly a chorus, as Maien flickered in and out of being, riding the wave of sound. "I, too, have a Name! I am Tsel Shadowborn, formed of the essence of all my father's council! Formed in the darkness, inside the black soul of my father! Maien, let us see who has the stronger Name!"

Maien slammed to the ground in front of Dio's feet, the mage's body, name, and spirit broken in the same instant.

And then the black spark caught up.

Shadow Dio turned, and walked away from the blazing pyre of black flame.

Maien lay on the ground, and knew he was in his last moments. The destruction of his name had left gaping wounds in both his body and soul, places where he simply had not reformed, allowing his physical and mystical essences to leak out onto the rocks of the Chaosground. [I was to have become the new Mad God. That would not have stopped me].

Then the Wyld Evolution had hit. The return of his Karma, all the harm he had caused, given back. [With the power of Chaos, I would have been able to do in months what had taken millennia.] Alone, that would not have killed him either.

Neither blow had been struck alone. It was over for him.

But not for his vengeance, perhaps. [The arrogant whelp said I would learn nothing more from him, but he taught me with the very way he made his statement reality.] "An attack that would follow me anywhere? I can do better than that, cur!" Maien lifted his arm [so heavy] and gathered all the energy that remained to him. The pyre had reduced his hand to nothing but claw-like bone. [Fine.]

With a single, explosive motion, Maien drove his hand through his own abdomen, blasting his spine aside in order to reach the precious, precious darkness beneath.

From underneath his own body, the dying mage pulled forth his shadow. Freed of the ground and stained with blood and fluid, the darkness dangled like limp cloth. "You... you are all that is left of me now, my shadow. Let the sacrifice of this body give... you strength, and hunt down... the one... we blame. Go forth, my... Shadow Evolution. Do what you... must. Whatever you must.

Lane was standing in front of the two-story lab, waiting for the Shadow to return. "We both recovered a while ago. As soon as Saul could walk, he started gathering as much stuff as he could. Well, as much as he thought he could put back, if Maien won. We knew we would feel it if Maien died, because of the apprentice contracts."

Dio was feeling drained. His strength had been driven to frenzied heights by the battle and the Chaosgrounds, and he was going to need energy to replace the reserves he had spent. Also, on the way back he had formed much of his black mist, much of his exposed power, into a new shroud over his face, leaving only the same single hole into the raw chaos. "And you? Why did you not abandon the sinking ship along with your fellow former apprentice?"

"Maybe just because I haven't thought about it enough." Lane quirked a corner of his mouth upwards. "You heard us talking, while you were in the prison shell. Saul had been here a century, and he knew he would never be a power on his own. I might not really like the vindictive, conniving son of a bitch, but he rarely fails to plan for the worst."

"So after he gave you the idea, why didn't you head off in some other direction?" Shifting ever so slightly, Dio changed from a posture to a stance. The glimpses of spirit and time were showing him a possibility. "Did you stay to defend his works? To preserver in his vengeance as a monument to your fallen master?"

"Nah. He wasn't exactly nice to me, you remember. But I do want to preserve the knowledge here. Without Maien looking over my shoulder, and making me do things his way, I think I can learn to take care of myself fairly quick. What about you? Are you going to stay here? You could teach me how to work darkness magic as a Shadow would, not by stealing the power." Lane lacked both the desire and experience to keep his hope out of his voice.

"Would you pledge featly to me, whatever my choice?"

"I was in your memories, right? I know you are the rightful heir to this land, with your father and Maien gone. I'm willing to be a citizen of this land, with the rights and duties pertaining thereto."

The progeny of the Lord of Shadows relaxed somewhat. "I'll have you know, if I do take over, being a lawyer will be made a capital offense. Dio's memories of this modern human world leave me no other option. But, in any case, I will be leaving. You will destroy the things that have only to do with parasitizing my people, but the rest I leave in your care." Dio was now certain of his course. He would spare this one, for the sake of all the Shadows. "Bare your chest."

Lane opened his robe above the belt, exposing a flat but soft stomach, and shoulders that saw only the minimum work required to keep them in good health.

With a single fingernail and a piece of his own darkness, Dio traced a small, twisted pattern onto his new leigeman's left breast. The hiss of a sharply drawn breath, and tight fists were the only signs of how much pain this simple motion caused.

"That will give you all the power you should need, until I see you again. You are mine now, more completely than you ever were Maien's. You thirst for knowledge: learn about us. Study my people, not as your prey, but as your patients. Learn about how we are bound, and learn how that binding has gone wrong. Give my people hope."

"I... feel you." Lane was overwhelmed, but not with anything simple, like gratitude or awe.

"Yes. Now, along that link, give me the use of your Mantle for a moment." The best thing Dio could think of to do for his stunned subject was give him time and space to consider. "My own Mantle has been... subsumed, along with my Stand, and I need to go back to the human world."

When Lane called forth the symbol of his magic, it was as large as a cape, perhaps twice its previous size. With an open hand, Dio called it, and quickly crafted his black oval portal.

Neither of the humanoid figures saw Maien's Shadow slide into the portal. But when the newborn Shadow of hatred saw what lurked in the space between worlds, it hurried to on Ningenkai. Already it had gained enough of a mind to be grateful the watcher was waiting for something else.

When Dio stepped through the portal, he noticed nothing before the claws dug into his shoulder.