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The Hunter and the Templar	By : BurneHazard Category: +A through F > Diablo III Views: 6471 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Diablo III (3) and all content therein is the property of Blizzard Entertainment. This story is for entertainment purposes only and I make no money from writing it.

Chapter List
- 41
- 42
- 43
Author's Note:
            I'd planned to take a couple of days to do this, but sadly I had 4 sources of inspiration that just would not let me focus on anything else. This is the longest chapter to date...and all I can say is...wow. I'm thinking 2 chapters left now and we'll be done. But hey, been wrong on this fic before...

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            Her heartbeat matched the cadence of her boots ringing on the steps as she ran. Every step drove a sharp jolt of sensation up through her legs and her battered body to remind her of every blow that had been struck, every bruise acquired, every minute scrape or cut she had obtained. Not even the sound of her footsteps on stone could prevent the rise of a strange sensation that she had done this before.
            Memory rose around her as glowing eyes saw shadowed breaks in the ground before her, overlaying the stairs. Her face and limbs stung with phantom cuts made by whipping branches. Her arms ached from carrying a weight greater than half her own. Her lungs burned with remembered need of air they could not draw in fast enough to meet the demands of her flying feet. She remembered, and her eyes burned crimson with hatred.
            The warmth of sunlight was behind her as she plunged into darkness. The scent of smoke and burning flesh filled her mouth with the taste of death and char. Her ears rang with the screams of terror and agony carried on the wind and forever echoing in her mind. Onward she ran, into the darkness, into the fear...away from all she had loved and all she had known. Before her was a single point of limitless evil that burned as fiercely as her vengeance. And as she ran, the shadows took form at her heels, bearing their fangs and letting their tongues loll in open jaws as the wolves raised the chilling cry of the hunt.
            Killashandra reached the summit of the stairs and saw her quarry at last. Slowing her head-long rush, she caught her breath and glared from the shadows of the hood at the figure before her. Wolves snarled, hackles rising as the shadowy pack milled and churned behind her, circling in restless anticipation for the blood to come. Her prey had its back to her, utterly focused on the crystal arch surrounding them as pulsing surges of dark corruption flowed from the outspread arms to darken the light.
            "DIABLO!" she screamed in rage.
            There was a distinct pulse in the flow of corruption fighting against the harmonious music that she only just heard coming from the darkening crystal. Slowly, her quarry turned with flawless grace only one suspended in the air could have. The fearsome visage did nothing to her when the burning eyes opened. She met the glare with her own as she stood there, one arm at her side, the other raised so the crossbow aimed skyward. The Prime Evil stopped his work and dropped to stand on the gilded floor.
            "The seven Evils are one within me!" he roared as his tail coiled and lashed the air with the lethal promise of both serpent and scorpion. "I am LEGION!"(1)
            "I have killed legions before," she said simply.
            "Indeed, but because of you, the seven are no longer divided. Because of you, all their power, all their knowledge, all of their abilities...are mine."
            "And when I defeat you, all that remains is the scattered remnants of your surviving legions."
            Diablo began to move forward one slow step at a time. He struck her as a stalking beast. Rather than feel intimidated, a rush of anticipation made her lips twitch into a smile just above the folds of cloth that formed the hood's mask. Her thumb moved to press the switch on the lifted crossbow. The click was sharp as several more bolts were loaded along the curve of the bow, ready and waiting. It did not even make Diablo hesitate.
            "When? Is this confidence...or arrogance?" he asked as his tail slowly twisted and undulated behind him.
            "Does it matter? When this is over, only one of us will remain."
            "Your hatred makes you powerful, nephalem, but you are not the god your predecessors believed themselves to be."
            "No, I'm not," she said as she slowly bowed her head forward. Again her thumb moved and the crossbow resting at her side clicked, loading multiple bolts in a wicked fan across the arc. "But I am an Army. Of One."
            The runes etched upon her armor flared as the shadowy wolves sprang forward. The dried blood of angels splattering her armor pulsed with light as the sigils she had traced within each pale blue marking came alive. The shrieks of bats and ravens came as a cloud of them surged up over her shoulders like nightmarish wings. Spiders hissed as they boiled up from the openings in the floor to either side of the Prime where parts of the crystal arch were visible.
            Diablo roared as she brought both crossbows to bear and fired. Charging forward, the Prime met the mass of conjured creatures with great sweeps of his arms and tail. Even as they fell upon him, Killashandra was moving. Her bolts flew through the air, narrowly missing the swift form of the demon as he crushed bats and spiders in his wake. Great blasts of flame seared wolves and ravens. Magic broke as creature after creature fell. But the fangs had torn open the hard flesh, claws had left glowing tears against red. White webbing hissed and crackled where green venom ate at it and the tough flesh beneath.
            A great blast of flame lanced through the air toward her. One heel dug into the corruption making the smooth stone floor rough. Twisting in place, she dropped only to leap upward and vault over the ball of flame to land in a crouch in the clear. She had not had any chance to refresh her stock of caltrops but she still had her reserves. In the instant her feet returned to the floor, she dropped one crossbow to pull two small devices from one of the pouches on her belt. A flick of her thumb and she threw them at the advancing Prime.
            Grabbing the crossbow once more, she somersaulted further away only to spin and fire once more. The two grenades flew through the air. Diablo brought one of his main arms up to strike one, sending it flying. The other flew past his guard to explode almost directly against his chest. Roaring in pain and rage, he spun to leap forward just as the second grenade went off. It threw the angle of his jump off so he landed beside her rather than on top of her. The hunter was already vaulting away, leaving another object on the floor behind.
            It exploded the moment the Prime's foot touched it, sending him flying backward. Still moving, the hunter turned and unleashed a steady stream of fiery red bolts after the tumbling body. Another roar shook the floor and the arch itself before Diablo slammed his fists into the ground. Flame exploded from his very body even as the first bolts struck. They were burnt away before their magic could eat into his body and the rest were blasted clear of him. But the ground continued to tremble.
            Moving on instinct, Killa vaulted away just as spikes snapped up from the floor to attempt to snare her as they had snared the templar below. Suddenly on the defensive, she vaulted from one spot to another as more traps sprang upward every time she landed, snapping closed just short of capturing her. In the haste, she lost track of her quarry only to have a monumental force slam into her from behind and send her flying over one of the arch's projections.
            Hitting the floor hard, she cried out as something crunched painfully in her chest. Diablo was there before she could move and one of his mighty hands slammed her back into the floor. The stone shattered, crumbling as he jerked her body up. Bits and pieces of the marble fell as his talons dug deep into her armor, piercing to slice into the flesh beneath. Crying out again, she whipped her head around to glare into the Prime's face and make her snared body move.
            One leg came up as she kicked the nightmarish grin away from her. The talon projecting over her heel caught on the wound Imperius had made in Diablo's cheek and tore it open further. Roaring in rage, he squeezed her like an insect. Even as a scream of pain tore from her throat, she brought her free arm up and around to fire another bolt point-blank into his neck. His roar became one of agony to match her voice.
            "ENOUGH!"(2) he shouted as he slammed her into the floor and sent her flying with a solid strike of his tail. One of his other hands rose to tear the black bolt free, using his own fire to sear the injury closed and destroy the magic eating at his body.
            "Let us see how you fare in my Realm of Terror!"(3) he spat at her as blackened red lines drew themselves beneath her slowly rising body.
            Shadow rose, tangling around her arms and legs, yanking her down against the demonic symbol as it finished drawing itself. There was only a moment for her to look down and see the pattern of the demonic circle before the shadows closed around her and she was pulled away. Darkness ate at her senses, stole away her vision as she fell...fell...and struck the ground hard. Wind instantly tore at her, dragging her over the sands and lifting the small grains to drive them into her exposed face, battering her from all sides.
            Grinding her teeth together against the pain, she pushed herself up. Her fingers dug into the hard, parched earth to stop her slide. The moment she did, the wind ceased to pull and instead blew outward. Then she could see. Darkness had not consumed her, it had drown her. The wind held it back to place her in the heart of a cyclone as darkness seethed at the edges, fighting to close upon her again. And from the wall of wind and shadow, a large shape came into view as Diablo's burning eyes locked onto her.
            "Only by defeating us can you return to your own realm!" he said, leering at her. The leer became a grin as he laughed and his skeletal head withdrew from sight. "But none have ever crawled from the depths of their own terror!"(4)
            Scanning the dark winds for a sign of attack, she stood and reloaded her crossbows. Nothing came for her as she caught her breath, ignoring the tickle of blood oozing beneath and over her armor. Cautiously, she stepped forward to approach the edge of the cyclone. It moved with her. And as she began to make her way forward, the winds revealed the ground to be carved with circle after circle of demonic influence with very little room to step between or over them. Something warned her not to set foot on them.
            Making her way slowly, she felt her racing heart begin to settle as she regained control of her rage. Still, nothing. Pressed for time, she began to move a little more swiftly although she still minded where she placed her feet. Then the shadows shifted away from something marking a difference on the otherwise featureless ground. Slowing, she scanned the limited area she could see before turning her attention to the object. It was a knife. Small, plain, a touch of blood on its blade...and very familiar.
            Her arm throbbed suddenly, just below the fleshy part of her shoulder. And it clicked. Head jerking up, she brought her weapons to the ready and turned. Then she saw it. Even though she knew it was a trap, she moved forward. The body was fresh, pliable and only a little of the blood was left to trickle sluggishly when she nudged it. The corpse slid, arm falling when it rolled onto its back--and she saw the guard's empty eyes staring at her. A familiar black quarrel was lodged in his chest and his face...
            "Dad!" a boy's voice cried.
            Jerking her focus away from the familiar body, she turned to look into green eyes. They were wide in shock and fear. When they rose to meet hers, she felt her breath catch. Suddenly the ground melted away. She stood amidst hundreds of corpses, thousands. It was not solid ground she stood upon but the corpses of people. There were bodies of black and red armor from Bastion's Keep, the rag-tag colors of Tristram Militia, the exotic headdresses and red of the Iron Wolves, the blue and silver of Westmarch guards.
            She stood upon the bodies and each one she saw had a familiar arrow or bolt lodged in them marking the killing blow. Even those ravaged by claw and fang or blade and fire...none were missing one of her arrows. Her heart skipped a beat as she surveyed the carnage. Only the boy remained alive. Unbidden, she looked back to him--only to find he had been replaced by the grown version.
            "Kormac..." she said, feeling her chest seize in pain. "I didn't..."
            "I did what you wanted," he said in a ragged voice as she stared at him. "Everything you demanded...I did...I gave you everything...but you killed him. I asked you to save them, I believed you would save them...and you killed them. All of them!"
            His words hurt more than her injuries. As she saw the accusation in his eyes, the betrayal in how he looked at her, she could not look at him any longer. But the only thing she could look to were the corpses.
            "I trusted you to...to be the hero! Even though I knew you were twisted by vengeance, you...you took us to Hell! How could you do this? All of this? Was it all lies?" he continued.
            "Kormac...it wasn't me...I didn't...I couldn't!"
            "We believed in you!" he cried.
            Motion drew her attention and she found herself drawing a painfully sharp breath as she saw Lyndon crawling toward her. His clothing was torn, body bloodied by a whip. The once rakishly handsome face was distorted by the swelling of a black eye and broken jaw. His arms were chained together by prison manacles and his fingers were bloody from clawing at some unforgiveable surface. His skin was marked by brands familiar to her as those given prisoners and traitors.
            Eyes widening, she tore her gaze away only to see Haedrig sitting a little further down the pile of bodies she stood on. He was cradling his wife's shattered skull on his lap, weeping and begging her to come back, that he had not meant it, that he had been forced to hurt her. Throat tightening, she found she could not swallow past the pain. Especially not when her eyes found very familiar corpses beyond Kormac.
            Leah lay sprawled, body charred and torn apart by demonic claws, eyes wide and staring. Upside-down above her was Cain, the old man's body ravaged by curses and twisted out of proportion as he smoked from the failed pyre. Nearby was her first mentor's body, impaled on a large pole, stomach and chest carved with demonic sigils, a black bolt through her exposed breast, jaw torn completely off to leave her tongue hanging against her throat. The pole was held up by the body of her second mentor, his stomach ruptured by the base, one arrow piercing what had been a blue eye, another lancing through his throat.
            More bodies, faces she held names for, other faces that meant little save that they had died for being near her, for traveling with her, for speaking to her. She did not realize she was spinning. Her horrified gaze went from body to body, seeing evidence of her involvement, back and forth and around as her throat closed further, locking a scream inside. At last, she could not take it and brought her hands up to cover her ears as she fell to her knees to scream.
            "A demon hunter leaves only death and destruction in their wake. Demons may torture, kill, terrorize, but they kill everything they come across. You aren't even that merciful, are you? You leave families broken, villages half alive, children orphaned, parents childless. You kill...but you always leave something alive to suffer for the rest of their years."
            Breath catching violently on her sobs, fists covering her ears, she had no idea how she could hear the voice. All she knew was that she was hearing it and the words peeled away every pathetic defense she struggled to bring to bear.
            "You're no better than what you hunt. In fact, you're worse than the demons," the voice continued and she no longer had a clue who it belonged to. "How does it feel knowing you have failed those who depended on you?"(5)
            Suddenly, she caught her breath and held it as a memory rose. A young boy in the middle of chaos and war. He hid in the keep. The son of a soldier...and he had looked at her. The look in his eyes... Her own opened to stare into the empty eyes of the corpse she had collapsed on. There was nothing in its eyes. But the boy...he had looked at her, not expecting pain, not expecting perfection. He wanted...what? What had he wanted when she stopped to reach out and ruffle his hair? A smile.
            "You're wrong..."
            Killa slowly lowered her hands away from her head as she held onto that smile on the child's face. As she caught her breath and forced her lungs to stop hitching, she lifted her head. The vision of Kormac stood before her still. Slowly, she began to rise as her grip tightened on her crossbows.
            "What?"
            "You. Are. Wrong," she stated as fire ignited in her eyes once more. "I bring death. I bring pain. I bring sorrow. But unlike demons, I bring hope in my wake."
            That was what she had seen in the boy's eyes. The light borne of rekindled hope. It was the simple hope that all children had, that adults took for granted. The hope that the nightmare would end and the sun emerge behind the fleeing darkness once more. Even if she was part of that darkness, she was the last glimpse of it before the light returned. And with tears wetting her cheeks, she faced her fear with a glare.
            Kormac's image flickered and twisted. It was brief, and had she blinked she might have missed it. She did not blink. Red infused her eyes as she brought her weapons up and fired them into the image's face. The illusion shattered and the shade that replaced it brought her own weapons up to bear. Ducking, Killa vaulted to the side. The piles of corpses returned to the demon-scarred ground as she landed straddling one of the circles without touching it. Her shadow was moving as well.
            "Your nephalem power will not help you in this realm, mortal!"(6)
            But the shadow was not the hunter. As they circled and dove and danced, it was the shadow that began to weaken as burning shafts struck its arms and legs, crippling and slowing it until she could move into position. One shot ended the shadow in an inhuman scream. The illusion vanished only to be replaced by the dark figure of Diablo barreling from the wind-wall into the circle. Springing backward, she loosed a hail of fiery bolts toward the shade. It could not move fast enough to evade them all as it roared in pain and fled back into the darkness.
            Rather than wait, she sprang after the fleeing figure. It slid out of her sight. The next instant she came upon another shadow. Prepared to just destroy it and run on, she found herself stopping in her tracks when it lifted its head. Eyes widening, she stared down into the face of her little sister. There could be no mistaking the wider-spaced eyes, the roundness of a pixie face, the slight differences in the way her body and head developed compared to her arms and legs. So human, but so different.
            The girl smiled as she saw Killa and released a bright, bubbling laugh as she lifted her arms in her way of asking for a hug or to be picked up. She had only ever done that with their parents or with Killa. Forgetting everything in the shock of seeing the image, the hunter stood there, unaware that her bow fell away from the girl's face. Still laughing and grinning with those half-grown teeth showing, she made an unsteady way toward her, still asking for a hug.
            Again she felt heat scalding and burning her cheeks. Her memories rose as the shadow faded around her, replaced by the music of a village in celebration. Young men and women leapt and spun in energetic dance as their elders were more reserved but no less enthusiastic. Suddenly, she was in the loft watching them dance from above as her sister giggled and laughed beside her. And this time, as she saw her mother and father dancing...she knew what was coming.
            "Hope follows you? Did it follow you here? Did it stay beside you when you chose to let them all die?" came the dark voice.
            It was happening all over again. She saw the strange change in the fire. Watching it, she was silent as she saw the first demon form and rise from a swirling black portal mostly hidden by the base of the timbers forming the bonfire. Not once did she call out--even as she thought about it--to warn the dancers below. Even when her little sister went oddly quiet, she did not cry or scream as fear made her heart race.
            The skeletal face in the flames twisted into a grin as the creature rose and a barbed tail whipped out to skewer a woman. Lifting her into the air, a giant clawed hand grabbed her and tore her in two. Roaring, the demon turned to crush another dancer under a cloven foot as the fire danced along the four giant spikes rising from its back like wings.
            "You could have saved them if you had just made a sound."
            Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as she watched the demon tear villagers apart, blast others with fire, strike others that turned on their friends the moment they rose again. And then those black claws grabbed her mother to lift her into the air. The woman screamed as blood flowed from her stomach and back. That vicious tail whipped around and slithered forward like a snake under her kicking legs. Even as she somehow knew what was to happen, she could not scream as her mother screamed when the tail impaled her, bursting through her body and ripping her jaw free when it broke from her mouth.
            Unable to even breathe, Killa watched her father run away from the beast. It drew the demon's attention as it spun and lashed out. The long arm knocked her father off his feet and sent him crashing into the wall of a house. Grabbing his leg, the demon dragged the screaming man back toward it. The other hand rose only to slam down, driving those hooked claws into his back and yanking him into the air as her mother twisted and jerked like a horrible puppet, still impaled on the lashing tail.
            It was wrong. All of it was wrong. Her father never screamed in fear. He never ran away. He never left her mother alone. Her mother...had not died that way. Suddenly she found she could tear her eyes from the horrible scene before her to look to her sister. Her beautiful, special little sister--with glowing red eyes. One had burst, trailing slime down her cheek and face. Her fingernails were bloody, her lips and teeth torn. She laughed again--and Killa felt the solid weight of a crossbow in her hand.
            Bringing it up, she stared into her little sister's burning eye as she brought the arrowhead to that laughing mouth...and pulled the trigger. She did not even flinch when the gore and blood struck her face and chest, splattering her. Heart racing with rage hotter than the fire that suddenly flared around her as she dropped into the heart of the bonfire, she took aim and launched a new attack at the shade of Diablo.
            Her scream mingled with the shocked roar of the demon as the illusion vanished in clouds of darkness. Rage, pain and hatred consumed the hunter--and she pulled it all into her as she drove the shade backward, firing bolt after bolt into its stumbling body. The shade hissed and leapt into the wall of wind once more as she broke into a run after it. No longer did she pay mind to the circles on the ground. She ceased to care. The only thing she wanted was that demon at her feet, crumbling into ash.
            "You cannot defeat your own terror!"(7) the shade roared into the void around her.
            "WATCH ME!" she screamed back.
            The head-long rush brought her straight through the wall of wind, into the darkness, and out into a large chamber. She skidded to a stop to look around. It was more than familiar to her. The ceiling rose so high above her it was lost in a smoky haze. Around her were the charred forms of giants smoldering in the unending torment. The music of their agonized groans and muffled screams embraced her like the heat.
            "You think this will stop me?" she yelled as she looked for the specter she had to kill to destroy it. Even though she had an idea what this would be, it did nothing to prepare her for the actual sight.
            She stood watching herself use the lash she had taken from the succubus when they freed their human pets. Kormac was pinned on hands and knees by heavy chains driven into the stone. His back was a bloody mess and every time the equally bloody lash fell, it tore a ragged scream from his ravaged throat. Her heart skipped a beat and she forgot to breathe when she was suddenly consumed by a familiar, twisted hunger.
            Breathless, she froze and just watched herself circle her prey. Unlike before, she was not tracing a circle on the stone floor. She was stripping away his flesh and spirit strike by strike. His tears were darkening the floor under his head as his blood spread in a pool under his body. At last, unlike before, his arms refused to hold him up and he collapsed into his own blood, writhing in futile effort to escape. Only then did she stop.
            The lash slithered over the stone, playfully licking at his shoulder and making him flinch. But he did not try to rise, did not try to escape. When she had coiled it in one hand, she stepped around to his head and rested her fists on her hips. Slowly, the bloody templar moved his arms. Without reaching for her, he drug his broken body across the floor to her feet and lifted his head to nuzzle her boots.
            "Killashandra...please!" he gasped, breath hitching with deep sobs. "Please..."
            "Please what, templar?" she sneered as shadow slithered around her body like a living thing.
            Sobbing, he sagged before trying to push himself up a little more. It took a monumental effort that left his body trembling, but he looked up at her. "Please...purge me...of my sins..."
            "Good pet," her image said and smiled when Kormac kissed her feet again.
            Trembling, panting, shivering in the conflicting emotions, she just stared at the tableau as her double sank down to viciously grab the sweat and blood-soaked hair and force Kormac up to claim his mouth for a kiss brutal enough that blood trickled over his cheeks from their lips.
            "Is this your vision of hope and light? Is this what it means to be nephalem? Do you really think you're not like a demon?"
            The pain sliced through her sharper than any blade. It hurt because it was true. She wanted it. That dark hunger for his screams, for his agony, for him to worship her...it was all there. Even as she watched herself kick the broken templar away, saw two demons grab him and haul him up to hold as her copy spun to start working bloody strips across his chest, she admitted she wanted it all. His blood. His screams. His agony. His devotion. His soul. His heart.
            His heart. Blinking, she frowned at that thought. For a moment she was hyper-aware of her own heartbeat. A heart that beat strong, that raced, that ached, that was cold, that was hard, that was dark. A heart devoid of almost all light that granted compassion and kindness. Or...did it?
            "Your desires are the same as any of us. You've tasted what it is to feed off of agony. You know how sweet it is to have broken a spirit and reshaped it. But you have never indulged in the richness and power another gives you. You are no demon, you are less than demon. How could anyone want that?"
            Killa was no longer listening even if she heard the words. Watching the scene, she found her heart beating for another reason. It hurt. Every pulse it ached. Every strike of the whip it hurt. Every time he screamed...yes it made her tingle and hunger, but why would she be crying? The only time she had ever cried was...when that warmth was around her. Warmth. Comfort. Compassion. Shelter. Peace.
            "...love."
            The shadows grew darker as the stone floor faded, paling and gaining lines. The illusion slipped. Then it grew stronger again as something new entered it. Two more demons--succubi--dragging another figure between them. Her double turned away from Kormac to face them. And a familiar young woman was thrown roughly at the copy's feet. When a bloodied hand grabbed the pale golden hair to wrench her head up--it was Eirena. Kormac cried out sharply in alarm, all pretense of affection for her copy lost as that warm light filled his eyes. It was for Eirena.
            "Do you really think she wouldn't take him from you in a heartbeat?"
            Her breath caught. She released it slowly to steady herself. "What would you know about love?"
            "You want his love, his devotion just as much as you crave his pain and blood. But he loves another, doesn't he? It's the same for all of them. They all love someone else. In the end, you destroy anyone who dares to love you. Because you are incapable of love."
            Killa swallowed but was again not listening. She was staring at Kormac as he collapsed near the enchantress and kissed her. It hurt more than the wound in her side had, more than healing it had. But as she watched, she found that her heartbeat was slowing. Tension was seeping from her body. And that cold, sharp grip of fear...faded.
            "You know nothing of love," she said as she slowly rose back to her feet. She flipped the switch that collapsed the crossbows and slid them into place beside the quivers on either thigh. "If you did, you'd know that when you love someone..." Reaching back, she finally drew the longbow free. "...you can let them go." One hand fell to her belt and she drew a small sphere from a pouch.
            "That is why I know...I am no demon!" she stated as she threw the last of her grenades into the midst of the illusion. It exploded the moment it touched the ground.
            The shadowy wind howled around her as the entire place shattered. Letting it tear at her, she drew a longer arrow as the sand and flying bits of blade-like earth shredded the cloth covering the bow. Spreading her fingers, she let the wind take it as light flashed about her fist. The clone of the hunter staggered and started to run toward her, crumbling as its shape grew and twisted into the shade of Diablo.
            Bringing her arm up, she notched the arrow and aimed as the wind was pulled inward toward the fist gripping the bow. Shadow and sand spun about the arrowhead as she drew the string back and released. Sand, wind, shadow, and a shaft crackling with arcs of blue-white lightning pulled together to become a lance driving toward the shade. It reared back, trying to dive aside, but it was too slow. The arrow punched a hole straight through the dark chest to erupt out the back, dragging the howling winds and sand with it to scour the hole larger.
            Freezing in a rictus of agony, the shade crumbled and fell to chaff on the roaring winds. They raised an eerie howl and grew stronger, closing toward her. But she already felt a tug. Looking down, she watched the lines of her own blood form a circle beneath her feet as shadow rose and enveloped her. Crimson eyes flashed in the darkness before she was pulled from the dark realm and thrown into the light.
            "NO!" Diablo roared as she landed easily on her feet before him once more. "This wretched light must be eradicated!"(8)
            In the time she had been gone, the corruption had grown. It tainted both visible rises of the crystal arch and had nearly blackened the chamber completely. But there was still light emanating from the crystal. Weak, sluggish, but there. She was not yet too late. And as Diablo stormed toward her, body pulsing with a familiar crimson light coming from his chest, she found that she was balanced. Rage, hatred, shadow, it was all there and waiting for her command.
            "Come on!" she roared and loosed another arrow.
            This time, the Prime was not fast enough to dodge. The arrow struck his right thigh and the wind twisting around it made it spin, tunneling into his leg until the barbed head broke through the back. Roaring, he launched a fireball toward her. Vaulting away, she fired again before diving behind the rise of crystal she was closest to. It gave her a moment to reach back and tug the braided cord free of the quiver, snapping it to the base of the arrow and dropping the rest nearby.
            In an explosion of shadow, Diablo was suddenly right on top of her. Throwing herself to the side, she landed on her back, sliding across the floor. Her arrow was fired and again the wind spun it hard so it struck the back of his shoulder and burrowed into his chest. Roaring, Diablo spun and brought one foot down hard on the ground, releasing a fiery shockwave from his body. Flipping upright, she landed atop the crystal and slung her bow up to hook over her shoulder so both hands could grab the cord.
            Giving a powerful jerk, she caught Diablo off balance. It was just enough for her to drop down between the hole in the floor between floor and crystal. Although her weight was not enough to yank the Prime off his feet, it did force him to stagger closer. Looping the end of the cord about the projections, she tied it off and climbed upward. Since she had not fallen far, it was easy to climb up two feet then vault up onto the floor.
            The Prime thrashed against his restraint--apparently it was not plain rope that Haedrig had made since it was not breaking easily. Strafing across the floor, she moved around as she grabbed the crossbows from her thighs and brought them up. They snapped into place and she fired. The shower of bolts drove into the demon's body and made Diablo roar before jerking forward to unleash a wave of flame after her.
            Breaking into a full sprint, she put further distance between her and the Prime. Suddenly, he was there in front of her. Reacting without thought, she dropped, turning her run into a slide taking her right between his legs. Dropping one of her weapons aside, she lurched up to grab the head of the arrow protruding from the back of his thigh. Using it as an anchor, she whipped her body around and planted one foot against his calf to jerk.
            The bloody thing pulled free as Diablo roared and his tail came down along with a giant fireball as he spun. She rolled so the tail struck her back and the added protection of her quiver. It sent her skidding out of the way of the fire and straight into another. Flames enveloped her as she flipped to her feet. They caught on the cloak and her hood, snapped the strings of her bows, snagging any other cloth she wore but did not catch the leather. Ripping her hood and cloak off, she started to move again only to have a clawed hand slam into her chest and send her flying.
            Striking the floor hard, she rolled and almost went into the very hole she had used the anchor rope on. Thrashing, she clawed at the ground. Her fingertips found purchase in the stone cracked by Diablo's forceful stomps and blasts. Dragging herself away from the edge, she rose to one knee before the tail was there again, slamming into her scarred side to send her flying. Fire hit her from behind and drove her face-first into the ground. Something cracked and popped. Pain exploded but her lungs lacked the air to scream.
            "All that you have known--all that you have ever loved--shall die along with you, nephalem."(9)
            Coughing, choking on her own blood as her body burned and her hair dragged over the charred flesh on the side of her face, she slowly pushed herself up to hands and knees. Lifting her head, she looked at the advancing Prime. One of her hands rose, swiping the back of a fire-seared glove across her mouth and smearing the blood there. But her eyes still burned with hatred as she made herself get to her feet regardless of the stabbing pain from shattered ribs and bones.
            "You...and your kind... You slaughtered my family," she gasped, gaining strength as she finally let her hatred slip its leash. "Murdered my mother..." Rage fed off her pain and the flames still licking at her legs and arms. "Butchered my father." Her blood began to glow and flare with light in time to the steady beat of her heart. "Killed my sister!" Shadow shuddered in the corners and moved toward her like blood.
            "Everything that I knew. Everything that I loved. Is already dead."
            Diablo smiled as he advanced, hands rising as flame flashed and formed, growing into great spheres of flame and corruption. "Then it's time that you join them, nephalem!"
            As she stood there, trembling, bleeding, watching the Prime advance...she felt the darkness within her unfurl like wings. Her broken and bleeding lips slowly transformed into a smile. Her heartbeat grew stronger, making the light from her blood pulse and flare. Shadow rose from the floor to wind around her legs, cling and climb her body toward the growing red light mirroring Diablo's own. Her arms rose slowly, ignoring the pain as broken ribs tore flesh. Darkness fell from above as if pulled away, sucked off the crystal arch to embrace her.
            For just a moment, Diablo hesitated--and Killashandra unleashed everything she had. Rage, hatred, pain, love, life, death. Darkness exploded from her body and extinguished the flames around her as it rose in a great column that spread out to form giant wings. Crimson light flared in the center of the column to illuminate a single point of blood and flame resting between her breasts and mirroring the glaring eyes burning through the blackness. Then it collapsed and parted as bloodied shadow swept away from her back to fan the air.
            Killashandra embraced her own darkness. It was not the mere illusion or spell as had been used to fool Cydaea. This was the true form of her power...the very thing she had feared for so long and finally faced. And as Diablo called forth his flame, the living embodiment of Vengeance before him drew the daggers from shadow-locked boots. Red flared along their edges as gold burned along the hearts of the blades--just as it did in those red eyes. As one, the two adversaries charged. The Pinnacle of Heaven erupted in an explosion of fire...
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The Hunter and the Templar