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I was the only human in the tavern that night, and business was slow from what I could tell. It had been the barkeep, the barkeeps sister, a drunk man, and I.

I had almost finished my third drink when someone in a black cloak walked in without a sound and sat down next to me. I greeted him, but he ignored me. He kept his head hooded and his face in shadow. With his head bowed he ordered his drink. His voice was strange; it seemed distant and detached.

"Some red wine." He silently waited for his order to be filled out while the bartender argued with her sister about some trivial thing. It took a few minutes but he finally got his drink in a dirty glass. In the same detached voice he had said, "how much?" Halfheartedly, the tender answered, "It\x92s on the house hun." At this he started to chuckle to himself quietly, "How do all these bars stay in business? The damn drinks are always free \x85\x85" He paused for a moment and said louder than he had expected, "EVERYWHERE!" All eyes were on him for a moment then everyone went back to their business.

The bartender and her sister were still fighting, and the male in the cloak had fallen asleep on the bar. "Rei, please stay." the bartender said. "I can\x92t, I\x92m sorry." her sister returned. Within a few minutes the male in the cloak abruptly sat up and un-hooded himself. "What the hell? Where am I?" He swung his head around wildly, taking in his surroundings. And strangely his voice seemed normal. "And why am I wearing this?" He gestured to his cloak. He struggled to get to his feet. His cloak off, he let it fall to the floor. He was an all black anthro wolf with a pair of dragons wings folded on his back. He looked a bit emaciated, and weak. His ebon eyes showed the pain that was in his legs. He wore only a pair of old, tattered, deer skin pants.

His knees wobbling, he started for the door. Three steps from his seat, he fell to his knees. All eyes were on him now, except for the drunken anthro, who just kept drinking at his bottle of tequila. He slowly got to his feet. Then he fell a second time. Then he started to yell things in a language only the other anthros seemed to understand. He got back to his feet and stumbled to the door, and fell again. This time he started to cry. Concerned for him, the bartender\x92s sister slowly walked towards him. In a fit of pain and anger he got to his feet, yanked open the door, and stumbled outside.

The tavern went quiet. "Now I am really going to leave!" the tender\x92s sister said, half jokingly. Ruefully, the bartender came from behind the counter and hugged her sister goodbye.

The bartender\x92s sister was reaching for the door when it wildly swung open with tremendous force, knocking her to the ground. In the doorway stood the stranger. His muzzle held a devilish, gleeful grin upon it. It was the kind of smile that bit at your eyes and flung you into a deep, dark, pit of despair. One from which you would never want to return from, for fear of seeing that terrible smile again. His eyes were glazed over white, not the black they once were. They showed malice, and euphoria, but his visage held the form of a life filled with anguish and misery.

And then he started to laugh. It was worse than his smile. It felt like a million needles were piercing my heart. When he had finally stopped, it echoed around him. It made my ears burn, and it gave me a vision of carnage and devastation. Everyone was glued to the spot in which they were.

He spoke in a deep-throated voice that emanated power in all directions, but he didn\x92t speak to anyone in the room, "Ha! You struggle so hard against me, but you are nothing. I know of your true power, but I am still stronger than you\x85 stronger that you\x92ll ever be!" He started to laugh again, and the bartender\x92s sister scurried past him outside. The bartender stood in front of him now. I had crawled into a corner, and the drunken man was just laughing at the situation like it was a joke.

The laughing of the drunk sparked the laughing of the stranger. He had stopped to speak, but the bartender cut in, "Who do in the hell do you think you are? Knocking my sister to the ground?" She then slapped him, hard, letting her claws do the more of the damage.

He took the slap with a smile, his teeth as black and dangerous as his eyes once were. He grabbed the bartender\x92s wrist and lifted her off the floor by it. She kicked at him ravenously, but it was to no avail. The stranger spoke again, in the same deep-throated voice, "I see you care for these\x85" he paused as if to think, "things. That is puzzling to me. But, now I will destroy this place and everything in it." A silent cry seemed ooze from the walls at his comment. "Starting with this!" he looked at the bartender, eye to eye. His free arm started to flame savagely with argent fire. He raised it to swing at the female struggling in his grasp. Her sister, still outside, started to run forward, a dagger appeared in her hands.

She stabbed at the stranger, her knife digging deep into his shoulder blade causing him to drop her sister to the floor. He yelled loudly in what seemed to be anger, not pain. The drunken man laughing all the while.

The stranger turned around, and with all of his strength, he plunged his aflamed fist into the bartender\x92s sister\x92s stomach. The blow sent her flying across the room, and through the far wall. At this the drunken man stopped laughing and got off his stool. He drew his broadsword from its scabbard and helped the bartender off the floor. Angrily, he shoved his sword into the stranger\x92s belly, severing vital organs. The stranger smiled broadly and the sword, still in his stomach, melted and fell to the floor as liquid. The drunken man was stunned with the horror of what he saw. The stranger, still smiling, grabbed the man by the neck and lifted him off the floor. With one twitch of his muscle, the stranger broke the man\x92s neck and threw him to the ground. He was left there to die. He was helpless. He closed his eyes and wheezed his last breath of air.

I watched in horror. It seemed unreal, like a terrible nightmare come to life. A black devil with white fire.

Appalled by the stranger\x92s actions, the bartender drew her sword and stabbed him in the back. The stranger winced and turned, and backhanded her. Her sword cut through his side as he turned. the strike broke her jaw, shattered it. Then he grabbed the sword by its blade and melted it in his fingers.

The bartender\x92s sister had crawled from the hole she had made in the wall and brandished her dagger. The stranger grabbed the bartender by the neck and turned to meet her sister. The dagger in her hands caught fire and she dropped it. It burned through the wooden floor of the tavern. He laughed and turned his back on the bleeding, broken female, returning his attention to the one in his grasp. She squirmed and kicked at him as hard as she could, but id didn\x92t help her. "Now you die!" The stranger started to laugh once again, and it seemed to pierce the bartender, deeper than it had before. It seemed as if he were laughing into her soul, at her very being. She was broken in a way, shattered. She stopped moving. He was strangling her, slowly squeezing out her life.

With her last ounce of strength, the bartender\x92s sister leaped up and lunged herself at the stranger and bit his shoulder. He lapsed in concentration and dropped the bartender. He swung towards the tender\x92s sister angrily. Painfully, I had to watch her get thrown across the room. It was at that point, huddled in a corner, I realized that the stranger did not bleed. I could see his wounds, holes in him, his furred skin hung off of him in places, but no blood.

The bartender\x92s sister skidded to a stop and she just lay where she was, bleeding. Her lungs and heart were punctured by her broken ribs. Each pump of her heart brought her closer to death. Many of her other bones were broken, and blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth.

The blank, expressionless, stare on her face burned in my eyes. She was in so much pain, that she had no way of showing it.

I am a coward. I didn\x92t go and help her. I was afraid. Afraid for my life. Afraid of the stranger.

Huddled in my corner, I watched her get viscously kicked in the stomach, over and over again. Then the stranger began to stomp on her. I could hear her remaining bones snap and crumble under his malevolent feet. The sick smile he wore on his face widened with every kick and stomp. Her body was covered in her own blood. He kept kicking and stomping on her even after she had passed away.

While this was happening, the bartender crawled over to me. Her furr was slick with blood, but her presence comforted me. I think my presence I helped her also. We huddled together in the corner, hugging eachother for support. We watched, horrified, as he continued.

He stopped kicking the bartender\x92s sister\x92s corpse on the floor and turned towards us. Sobbing in fear the bartender hugged me tightly and dug her muzzle deep into my shoulder to hide herself from the stranger. I looked at her, and then diverted my gaze to the stranger with an angry expression. He still smiled as he reached towards us. His smile now emanating the malice and euphoria that his eyes showed.

Halfway to us, he stopped. The white in his eyes seemed to flicker between the black they once were, and the white they were now. A stern "NO!" filled the air. It came from the stranger but he did not open his mouth. It radiated from him. He stood erect and put his hand at his side. I watched him closely. His eyes moved rapidly under their lids for a few seconds. Everything was quiet, I didn\x92t breath. The only sounds were of the bartenders crying. Then suddenly his eyes opened. To my relief they were black again. And in the same voice that seemed to radiate from him before he said, "NO!"

A white mist filled the room, a fog. It burned on my skin, but the anthros seemed unaffected by it. A voice came from it, deep throated, and angry. "You can\x92t beat me! You can\x92t!" A bolt of lightning came out of the mist and hit the stranger. His wounds then started to bleed. His blood was as black as the rest of him. It spilled all over the floor, and I, along with the bartender, was soon soaked with it.

The mist kept striking him with energy, the same argent energy as before. The stranger then spoke calmly, "Enough\x85" With that word his eyes radiated darkness. It was bleak with hatred and pain. The black seemed to be devouring the white. They swirled and sparked within eachother. It didn\x92t take long before the black from the stranger had cornered the white mist. Before the last of the fog was . . . . . . . eaten, it spoke again angrily, "You will defeat me, yes. I\x92ve underestimated your will power. But the memories of what I\x92ve made you do will haunt your memory for the rest of your pathetic existence." Then laughter came out of the mist. It was the same as from the stranger when his eyes were glazed. The stranger\x92s eyes narrowed and he smiled. His smile darkened the room even more. But instead of the felling of pain and suffering, and anger that I got when in looked at his eyes, I got the feeling of memories. Memories that made me start to cry, although I didn\x92t know what they were. Memories of violence and evil.

I don\x92t know why he smiled at his terrible memories, all I know is that is was like a spike being driven through the heart of the white mist. Its malice was destroyed and the room became midnight.

Out of fear, I had closed my eyes. The only sounds were of the crying bartender. I opened my eyes a few moments later to see the stranger, still in front of me. He seemed to be aflame with clear, bur also black, fire. It was healing his wounds. One after the other, his hurts stopped bleeding and closed up.

The bartender had stopped crying, her eyes were red and bloodshot. She managed to crawl over to her dead sister\x92s body. She huddled over it, its head lay in her lap. I was in shock, I just sat there watching everything that was happening.

The stranger walked over to the hysterical bartender. She looked up at him with fear and anger in her visage. He squatted and reached out to her. She flinched, expecting him to hurt her but he didn\x92t. he held her gaze and with a slight touch of his fore-paw, he healed her jaw. She smiled slightly, to acknowledge his efforts. She dropped her gaze and gestured to her sister. Calmly, the stranger stood up. In a stern, but kind voice, he said, "I . . . . . I\x92m sorry. Her spirit has been gone from her body for too long." Then he turned towards me. I managed the strength, I should say courage, to stand up.

He eyed me carefully, then he nodded as if to say "yes" to my idea to go and comfort the bartender. I cracked a small smile. Grief emanated in the tavern. I walked over to the bartender and she stood. We both watched as the stranger walked out the door, spread his wings, and fly away.

We both stood above the dead body of the bartender\x92s sister, waiting for something to happen. It seemed like a strange ending to that chapter of our lives.

By: Disdoxain Vain