Another laugh, more haughty in its triumphant sound as Silas took a swing at the Man's face. But smug, the Man caught Silas' fist with an open palm, grabbing the Soul Collector's hand and squeezing. Effectively stopping it.
The Man as Silas, shifted his gaze directly into the Collector. From a reflection of darkness, the Man's face became Sky's before becoming his own for a split moment and then back to the Collector's once more. Doing what he could, he knew his ability was distracting. And as the Man couldn't replicate Silas' darkness, he could mimic his strengths and weaknesses.
Sky was around Silas' side, grabbing the Man's arm. Her touch was frostbite, pulling at his soul. Knowing she couldn't take him without him being marked by Silas, her only intention then was getting him to let go of her Collector.
The Man as Silas' twin barked in annoyance, snatching his hand away and pulling back from Silas. Even with that short moment, the real Silas was relentless. He took another swing at the Man, only to be met with it blocked. Again and again. Every forward punch Silas made was met in reciprocated defence.
The only thing that could turn the tables then was Sky. Circling her Collector, watching for her chance to knock the encounter off balance, she saw her chance. Shooting forward, her hands for the Man's neck. In turn, she saw the glint in his eyes as he turned his attention to her, the world in slow motion. She didn't understand why but as the Man moved, all was revealed. With a movement of his arm almost too fast to catch, the man reached beneath his cloak to retrieve something very special.
A long metal rod, that, by the will of its holder, shooting sparks of electricity from its end. With Rathanael's truncheon in his possession, the Man drew it from beneath the folds of his black clothes as though he were unsheathing a sword. Drawing its point into Sky's incoming face.
Sky's senses were torn from her and against her will, she was thrown into a world of bright white. Unable to move. Electricity was very effective against ghosts.
Now the playing field was even.
Blown backward like a miasma thrown into the wind, Sky was left comatose from the electric shock. It was all a part of the plan. How long could Silas last without her help?
Caught quickly by Silas' control on the chains, the ghost was reeled in protectively behind the towering Collector in the black suit. Watching the Man's admiration of the punch packed into Rathanael's baton, Silas' eyes narrowed.
The Man raised a hand, curling a finger forward in Silas' line of sight to beckon the man in black to advance. Taunted, the Collector obeyed. As his mirror, the man reciprocated the motion with the metal rod readied in his grip. By a mere thought, the top sparked, shooting out an arc of electricity as a warning to the man in black. What was done to Sky could easily be done to him as well.
The Collector did not need weapons when he had the chains. In warning, a length of metal link whipped upwards in anger and by Silas' will, cracked down upon the space between their stances with a thundering boom. Silas' frozen gaze never wavering from his due Collection.
With an unintimidated grin across his lips, the Man tilted his head to the side. Were chains and shadow the Collector's only trick?
Although told to not underestimate his enemy, underestimating Silas was just as dangerous.
"Tell me Collector," The Man smiled, "Are the chains all that remain between you and the darkness?"
The chains swiped across the ground at the Man's feet, forcing him to take a step back. He touched a very raw nerve within Silas.
The chains and Sky were his and the Man was a part of an attempt to defile them both. Something Silas would never allow and so, to protect them both, the Collector did something he never did.
With black eyes on the Man as his twin stranger, the Collector grasped the slack of chains with his marked hand. Making several loops around each hand with enough length left between them that he had freedom to move his arms as needed.
Tightly his hands gripped the links, letting it be known what was about to come. Flashes of memories of the life they once had pulled at his concentration but gritting his teeth, he would not be bested by the guilt that plagued him.
The Collector's stance widened, his body lowering. Bringing his fists to the level of his eyes, the knuckles of his fingers visibly whitened in his grip on the chains.
Silence in wait for the first move.
The rod in the man's grip sparked and in a split second of motion, Silas was before him. His black eyes were wide, his teeth clenched, Sky's white an aura behind the black of his monolithic height. Lost within with eyes closed, the ghost girl's arms were kept outstretched by the remainder of the chains' position floating around them. His fist shot forward, tearing through air in a streak of metal and black, while in return, Rathanael's baton was swung in defense.
Metal met metal and its sound rang out, ricocheting off the brick of the refinery that stood as the giant watching the battle of insects at its feet.
Each swing and turn of Silas' tall form was met with mirrored actions in instant motion until the Collector lifted a long leg and kicked the Man square into his stomach. The Man was thrown off balance, nearly falling backwards before managing to correct his stance by twisting his form quickly in the air and pushing with a hand off the ground. His leg swung around to find himself steadied again and staring back at Silas.
Keeping a careful eye on Silas, the Man in Silas' form was clearly amused. He had waited his turn. Watching the other three be collected by the man in black. He stood once more, rod in hand. His motion fluid, his body changed.
Red hair, freckled skin, and eyes of green jade. The living Sky stood.
Laughing, the Man as Sky took a step forward, her eyes alite with satisfaction when Silas' reaction was an immediate backtrack to his advance.
The Collector's weakness.
In a great leap forward, Sky's twin stranger swung the sparking metal baton at the Collector's chest, Silas' body bent back as a tree in the wind to avoid it. With each swing, Silas deflected contact, staying inches out of reach while his wide eyes remained locked on the twin Sky's face. Of all her perfections and imperfections, the Man could not fully copy his Sky's living memory. Yet despite knowing this, Silas could not bring himself to act against her. Stabbing forward, the electric end of the truncheon hit the Collector's arm, sending a jolt of electricity through Silas' body and up into his mind. Momentarily stealing away his senses.
The Man again as Silas' mirrored image, swung quickly the side of the metal baton across the Collector's face. Sent stumbling back, Silas tried to bring focus back to his mind. His twin wasted little time in another swing. It hit Silas' neck and the black monolith collapsed to a knee.
Silas' black sight was to the ground. His thoughts suddenly far away across the ocean with his being.
With a grin, the Man as Silas himself stood looming above the true Collector. Ready to strike. One perfect strike would be enough. Raising the baton above his head, he released a spark stronger than any other. The arc of its spark leapt into the air, searching to grab the closest object of metal.
Just as the arc descended, the Man was trapped by his own attack. Silas chained fist flew upward without warning into the Man's jaw. The spark hit the chains but it did little to deter Silas' force. Fist and bone collided with a sickening crunch, several teeth instantly broken. The rod dropped to the ground, the Man's form exploding into a gust of black feather. A crow formed in the storm of swirling down, flapping frantically in an effort to catch the non-existent wind.
From his marked hand the chains unravelled, and the links' lengths were freed. They shot upwards towards the bird. Clipping the creature's wing, the bird was sent spiralling downwards before again it was caught by the chains. This time, the lengths of metal entwined around the bird and pulled it down at such force the bird was shattered once more into churning feathers before finding its form as the now broken Man. Lying on the ground, his jaw crooked from the line of his face, the Man's mind was left discombobulated. Yet there, at Silas' feet as the Collector knelt, the Man in his turning confusion began to laugh. Rolling his head to the side, his eyes searched for the last Soul Collector.
To answer, Silas was at the Man's throat with his knee, pressing down with the marked hand ready at his face. Then forward his palm pushed into the Man's face. The sigil burning into flesh.
The Man's laugh rose to a scream for only a moment before dying back into a strained chuckle.
"Do you... think... this is the... end?" The Man's form flickered from Silas' twin back to the Man, trying to speak against the knee blocking his windpipe. The Collector's black eyes were boring into his due collection. The Fourth Horseman of Faust's Revelation and Betrayal against Lucifer.
The Man heaved, "The end is just the... beginning of... the end."
His features became those of the living Sky. Her face bloodied, lying broken beneath the Collector's crushing force. Silas clenched his teeth together, cringing at what he saw. The darkness gnawed at him. Prodded and pulled at him. It was burning inside of him. Inside the emptiness within his being, he could hold it in no longer.
With the Man as Sky beneath him, Silas let out a roar. His shadow writhed as his roar filled the night, shaking the Earth and Heavens. Of everything that had been taken from him. Of all the guilt he carried as chains in the fate he and Sky had been forced to endure. It was all his fault. That fact had been seared into him. But the belief remained as a flickering light in the all consuming darkness for which he had been sentenced would end. One way or another.
And then Sky was there. At Silas' side, as she always had been. Her ethereal white flowed outwards in his vision like wings. She grabbed for the man's soul from his neck, pulling him from his body faster than Silas' sight could follow. Her hair was standing on end and her fury raged at the Man's taunting. His corpse left behind began to dissipate into thousands of black feathers.
Bringing the ghost of the Man she held in her grip face to face with her wide and hungered gaze, Sky whispered in an icy hiss,
"No. It is your end that is just beginning."
Silas' shadow came alive in tendrils that ravenously clawed at the air.
"Delivered to Hell's Gate." Sky smiled a smile filled with contempt as she pushed the Man's soul down into the waiting arms of the door to Hell that lived in Silas' shadow. The Collector's roar had died away and now he was left watching her, wide eyed and heaving.
The Man was collected.
Sky's form floated to the ground before Silas’ kneel amidst the black feathers.
Tears brimmed her lashes.
“Silas,” her wide eyes looked to him. “we did it.”
There was a tremble of disbelief in her voice. Silas’ gaze remained wide. The Man had flash fed him perverted images of his Sky.
The cirrus of Silas’ darkness turned its attention to the ghost. He had to touch her.
The black curled around her, pulling her up into him as a long arm wrapped around her. The chains sank to the ground. And in that moment of silence between the storms before the beginning of the end, the Collector held the ghost of his dead lover against him.
The tears of black ink flowed over Silas’ stained cheeks. The black tar dripped from his lips. The coherency in his eyes remained far away.
They’d conquered the Four and now stood on the steps of their freedom.
Silas lifted a hand to her cheek. They needn't say a word. He brought his lips close to hers.
Breathing in her essence, Silas paused, his hand falling away from her face as he looked away. The arm at her waist released her slowly.
It was all his fault. Everything.
Confused, Sky leaned in closer, a look of concern furrowing her eyebrows.
“Silas?”
After a long moment, his cold voice spoke,
"This one is not worthy of his Sky's love." He said, releasing a long exhale of the guilt he carried. It gave no relief. "He made his deal with Lucifer, stealing my Sky from Heaven sent as she withered from disease in life. This one sold his own soul to keep her. A soul he had promised his Sky. She had no choice. His selfishness is unforgivable. If not for this one's sin, my Sky never would have suffered in this strange world by these chains he carried. He does not deserve her-"
"Silas," Sky stopped him, shaking her head as she brought her fingertips to his lips to hush him. "you watched me die. If it had been you dying in front of my eyes and I’d been given the chance by the Devil to be with you beyond life, I would have made the same choice. We found each other in one world but crossed to the next to be together. You didn't know that asking to be together meant chains. Yet, in this strange place, you protected me. You guided me. You loved me even when Lucifer left you empty. I never resented why you did what you did. I am forever grateful to you for even in death, I could still be with you. Silas, I love you."
Silas brought his marked hand up over her arm, his fingertips brushing through her hair to her cheek once more, holding it there as he looked deep into her. Gentle, he guided her face forward to his and into a cold kiss to connect them.
When their kiss parted, he said;
"This one will return his soul to his Sky."
He made his promise, rising with the chains and Sky's hand in his. To his full height, the Collector looked to the path forward. Beyond where they stood to the trail of feathers and blood and the towering brick refinery's entrance that faced the harbour before the oncoming dawn.
To Faust and the beginning of the end.
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