"Talk to me," Red said after a lengthy silence.

"What's going through your head?

Jane leaned against her girlfriend.

"Nothing. I'm so used to it being dark in there . . . in my mind . . . and scary and chaotic. But now I don't know what to think. I'm not used to it being so quiet."

Then she stopped, her eyes shooting towards the sky.

“It's here," she whispered.

"What's here?" Red asked, already knowing the answer.

“The Dark One. It's come for me." Jane thought it was ironic. She had come out here for revenge. Apparently, it wasn't for HER revenge.

She turned towards Red, raised herself up on her tiptoes and kissed the lycanthrope square on the lips. It was brief, but to the point.

And it might very well be the last.

"I won't let it take you," Red promised. It wasn't fair. They were supposed to get a break. They were supposed to have some time together to heal. But the darkness was coming nonetheless.

The trees around them were being buffeted by strong winds, though the air had been quiet just moments before. Red and Jane heard a scream of unimaginable hate from above, and they heard branches cracking as something came through the foliage.

What landed appeared to have been human once, but neither of the two women would have recognized it as Patrick except that the remains of his clothes still clung to its hide. Red smiled a little at that. He had wanted to serve at its side. Now, he was a little closer than that. This thing was a undulating mass of tentacles and claws and wings . . . all as black as a starless sky. And it seemed to be screaming, the sound coming out of its skin and making the hairs on the back of the girls' necks stand on end.

{{WELL, MY LITTLE MEAT PUPPET,}} it emitted, {{IT'S TIME TO FINISH WHAT I STARTED. I AM GOING TO MAKE YOU WISH YOU HAD JOINED ME. I WAS GOING TO KEEP YOU ALIVE LONG ENOUGH TO FEED YOU TO THE MASTER, BUT NOW I BELIEVE THAT I WILL JUST RIP THE SKIN FROM YOUR BODY AND LET YOU CRAWL IN A POOL OF YOUR OWN BLOOD AND WATCH WHILE I VIOLATE THAT HALF-BREED BITCH WHO TRAVELS WITH YOU.}}

Red moved between Jane and the Shoggoth, morphing into her half—human, half-puma form. The Shoggoth shot a tentacle out, smacking Red in the side. As she went flying through the air, she raked the tentacle with her claws, cutting it deeply. Even as she crashed into a tree and had the wind knocked out of her, she came to a realization.

‘It's mortal,’ she thought.

The Dark One turned its attention back to Jane. {{ANY LAST WORDS BEFORE THE PAIN BEGINS?}}

Jane did something then that the Shoggoth had never expected.

Normally, it would relish the unexpected as such things tended to fall under the realm of chaos. But this . . . this was disconcerting.

Jane had begun to laugh.

Jane couldn't control herself. What had started as a brief expulsion of air quickly turned into that type of Laughter that interfered with breathing. The Shoggoth looked so... so. . . ridiculous. ‘Before the pain begins?' she thought, trying to regain her composure so she could fight for her life. ‘What does it think I've been in for eight years?’

And therein lay the problem for the Shoggoth. It lived on pain and fear and madness. Its source of nutrition back in Springfield was too far away to provide it sustenance, and Jane . . . there was no pain there left to feast upon. Jane was tapped out. She had already beaten the Shoggoth back once, so she didn't fear it like she should or like it needed her to fear it. And the chaos in her mind was gone. Its mental tricks and powers were useless against her.

{{NO MATTER,}} it sent. {{I AM STILL MORE THAN CAPABLE OF KILLING ONE SILLY LITTLE GIRL! }}

"You need to learn to count," it heard from behind it. Claws sank into its back and fangs latched on to the back of its neck. The Shoggoth had forgotten about Red, and that was a costly mistake. The Dark One felt something quite pure coming from the lycanthrope that was attempting to eat it . . . love. Red loved Jane and that was translated into something else quite pure . . . hate. She hated the Dark One and anyone or anything else that had ever hurt the little dark-haired girl in the past. And that pure hatred was directed at the Shoggoth. It realized, a bit too late, that it had fucked with the wrong two people on the wrong night.