Blessed by Night

Sometimes, life can be a bitch.

You can have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that you didn't accumulate passed onto you by a family member who died, and are forced to assume responsibility for all of it.

You might get that special moment with a girl that you've had a massive crush on; but when you open her legs it smell like a seafood boil.

You could win thirteen regular season football games and STILL miss the top four slots for playoff contention.

However, there is very little that can compare to the awkwardness of sitting in the third row of a car, between your ex and a girl you currently have feelings for.

This seating chart wasn't done intentionally, but everyone else in the vehicle was certainly making sure that they enjoyed every moment of this delightful accident.

By nature, Melanie could be a somewhat chatty person and right now she was trying to interact with the one person in the car she didn't know: Malachi.

"So you're the guy who went missing, huh? You sure are popular around here." She said kindly.

"I guess.."

"You don't seem like the talkative type though. Does having shadow powers make you all broody like that or is this just a normal thing for you?"

Serana, Aubrey, and Joanne all snickered as Malachi felt his brow twitch of it's own volition.

"...I'm just like that I guess."

"Eh??? That's boring though!"

"Sorry to disappoint-"

Mal felt his phone buzz in his pocket and pulled it out against his better judgment.

Serana : Don't be so mean to our little amnesiac! She's just trying to be friendly with you.

Malachi: That's the reason we broke up, she was too damn friendly.

Serana : If you were going to hold that against her you wouldn't have saved her.

Malachi : Says who? I can be mad she cheated on me and still not want her to get beat on by some asshole.

Serana : She doesn't remember!

Malachi : I do.

"Why are you being so petty?"

When Mal felt Joanne whisper in his ear, he felt all of the blood in his body rush to one specific area.

He turned his head ever so slightly and found Joanne's face dangerously close to his.

"All of the women you have around you, yet you still have animosity for your first girlfriend?"

"Of course." He whispered back. "I don't really care what the reason is, cheating is despicable. No matter what kind of problems she had, I will never forgive her for going to another man to seek help when she could have just come to me."

"I heard you didn't have any money back then. What would have been the point of her telling you?"

"I was already going to bed hungry to make sure that Aubrey ate every day. There is nothing I would not have done to assist her if she only asked."

"You are such a weird kid... Going above and beyond for everyone like this is hardly the norm."

"I take care of those I love. You're going to tell me that I'm wrong for that?"

Joanne noticed that Mal's lips were beginning to get closer and closer to hers with every passing second.

She was embarrassed by the fact that he was really about to kiss her in a car full of people but when she remembered that she was bold enough to grab him in front of her daughter, this no longer seemed so daunting.

"No.. you aren't wrong at all."

The lips of the two had just barely scraped together when Aubrey suddenly hit the brakes hard and nearly flung everyone from their seats.

"Out of the car! Enemy inbound!"

Malachi grumbled more than a few unkind words as he and everyone else inside got out hastily.

Flying in the sky at 12' o clock was a large banshee class nightmare in the form of a large bird-like creature with horns and the face of a bat.

As soon as Joanne and Malachi saw the creature, their frowns deepened as if they felt slighted.

Their very hot and passionate kiss was interrupted by the ugliest thing either of them had ever laid eyes on, and now they were expected to fight it.

"Alright guys, I guess we can begin our mission a little early today! Let's hunt down these invaders and make them useful!" Rose said proudly.

To properly kill nightmares, the phrase, 'fight fire with fire' comes to mind.

Most all of them have an absurdly high regeneration rate, and the only method that had been fully proven to hamper that was the use age of the bones of other nightmares to create weapons.

Of course, Malachi hadn't realized this until a few hours ago, as he had been killing everything just fine before now.

Although when he thought about it; this was likely due to the circumstances behind his altered genes.

"You wanna deal with it or should I?" he asked as he stretched.

"I'm not that dependent on you yet."Joanne said somewhat sarcastically. "We'll go together."

"Fine by me. Ladies first."

"As if you were fast enough for it to be any other way."

Joanne disappeared from her place beside him in the blink of an eye, and Mal had no choice but to smile as he chased after her.

Like Anna, her mother showed signs of making a rather quick bounce back from being imprisoned for almost four months.

However, Mal was only just realizing that Joanne may have had just a small amount of suppressed rage inside of her all this time as well.

As soon as she came within striking distance of the nightmare creature, she drew her fist back and struck it firmly in the nose.

Though Joanne was not as strong as the other girls who were empowered from giving their bodies to Malachi, she was still a pretty tough cookie in her own right.

The blow she gave to the bat creature certainly didn't tickle, and since the noses were the most sensitive part of bats, the effect was even worse.

The nightmare was immediately sent reeling backwards; causing it to run right into Malachi's range.

Landing atop the head of the creature, he stomped on it hard enough to immediately send it catapulting towards the ground.

"Keep it down for me?" He asked as Joanne came to his side.

"Only if you ask nicely."

"...With or without my cloth-"

"I-I'll do it, I'll do it, forget I said anything!"

Joanne produced her brilliant white wings from her back and her eyes began to shimmer with a golden light.

She held up her hand and twelve giant swords of golden light appeared in the air.

Lowering her hand in a dramatic motion, she dropped all of the swords onto the bat's wings; setting it up like he was on a high school dissection tray.

"Thank you, love."

"Yea, yea... Just do whatever you want quickly, alright? What do you need it immobilized for anyway?"

"I wanted to try something." Mal said mischievously.

He closed his eyes to concentrate, and an absurd amount of negative energy started to leave his body.

However, instead of just simmering around his figure, it started to go up into the sky.

The daylight that Nyx had returned to this world disappeared in an instant once again- at least in this specific area.

Out of nowhere, the clouds parted way for a massive red and black hand that coursed with the power of negativity and shadow.

And since the two are often synonymous with each other, their powers only became amplified when used in conjunction like this.

The hand was so large that it was easily able to fit the entire bird-like creature in it's palm with no issue at all.

The creature started to panic and flee when the shadowy hand clasped around it's body and tightened it's grip.

The time it took for Mal to crush the bat with it's new and devastating power was abysmally short, but the sound of such a large beast's bones being crunched up would linger for forever.

Once he was done, Mal wiped his brow of sweat as he looked over at Joanne to get her thoughts.

"Show off." She muttered.

"Aww you're not impressed? I tried really hard for you though." He said as he pulled her closer.

"...Well... Your effort deserves to be rewarded I guess."

-

As Melanie watched Joanne and Malachi start kissing in midair, she folded her arms as she realized that something seemed to be wrong.

The contrast between this man now and the one she met in the car was just too different!

Even when he was fighting the monster he seemed to be playful, so why was he acting like she was some kind of plague!

Why didn't he like her!?

She hadn't even done anything to him!

'Unless..'

"Hey... That guy... we know each other, right?"

When she saw all of the remaining girls in her group flinch, she knew that she had hit the nail on the head.

"Why is he acting like this then?! Were we enemies?!" Melanie questioned.

"You used to date." Ryo said blankly.

"Babe!" Serana cried as she punched him.

"What? She was going to find out at some point." he shrugged.

Melanie felt her head start to spin dramatically at this revelation.

"We... used to date? Why would no one tell me that?! Why in god's name did we break up?!"

Aubrey knew that she had to save this situation somehow, so she gritted her teeth as she tried to come up with an excuse.

She finally thought of one that seemed believable, but it was not what she would call 'casualty free'.

"You guys broke up... because you caught him jerking off to pictures of your mom."