Ha! I was right. She was a Ninja.

“Did you see that? She turned into lightning, like literal lightning.” I gushed.

“Show off,” Matias muttered as he turned the car around and drove back through the bushes. “And she didn’t turn into lightning, she just channeled her power to increase her speed. It just happened to look like she turned into lightning.”

“That's so freaking cool.” I turned to look back at the horde of shadows.

Lisa was good, even surrounded and outnumbered she was still holding her own. She attacked the shadows with her daggers, but the possessed suburbanites she only attacked with a series of high arching kicks, each one discharging sparks of electricity. The suburbanites she hit fell down and stayed down. The shadows, however, were a completely different story, it seemed for every shadow she struck down two more appeared. No matter how formidable Lisa was, this didn’t look like a battle she could win.

“Is she going to be ok? I’m not sure what’s going on but there were a lot of those things. Also, what are those things?”

“Sombras but I guess shades would be the English word for it,” Matias said. “And yes, she’ll be fine. She may be pretentious and overly smug but she’s honestly one of the best the Dragon has to offer.”

“The Dragon,” I repeated, remembering the mask she wore. “And let me guess you are the cow.”

“The Bull,” Matias corrected, peeved. “I am of the Bull.”

“Ok. You are of the Bull and Lisa is of the Dragon. What does that mean? Could you just go ahead and explain everything? Please and thank you.”

Matias nodded. “You were being attacked by an army of shades. I’m not sure why, but if we hadn’t stepped in you would have most certainly died.”

I waited for more, but he offered nothing else - this guy.

“Wow, thanks. That literally explained nothing. I already know they were attacking me. As for why I think it's because of this mask on my face.

Matias turned and regarded me. His eyes widened as if now realizing that I was wearing it. “Dude; what’s that doing on your face?”

“I don’t know Matias; I had hoped someone could explain that to me myself.”

He squinted. “That’s not one I’ve seen before. Which Order are you with?”

“Order? What do yo- hey look out!”

Standing in the middle of the road, directly in our path, was Heather. How she had gotten there I didn’t know, probably some shadow teleportation magic? At that point nothing made sense so why not throw shadow teleportation into the mix.

“Merda!” Matias cursed as he veered away from her, sending us right into a tree, and my record of 0 accidents right into the gutter. The crash itself wasn’t so bad but it definitely didn’t help the ringing in my head.

Heather slinked towards us and more shadows rose from the ground to join her. Matias quickly got out of the car. He opened the backseat and pulled out his guitar case.

What the hell is he going to do with that? Sing to the shadows? I’d thought.

“Hey man. I don’t think your axe is going to help us right now.” I said, pointing out the obvious.

He ignored me and flipped open the case. Sitting in a bed of green velvet was a battle axe forged from what seemed to be dark silver and emerald. Its sharp green edges glowed menacingly as if to say ‘finally, fresh air.’

“Do you still think my axe wouldn’t help?” Matias smiled.

“No, no I stand corrected. That axe will definitely help.

He lifted his battle axe from its bed of green and swung it a couple of times. “It’s been so long Bessie,” he said talking to his weapon. “I hope you’re ready.”

The axe glinted as if in response and Matias smiled.

He turned to me. “You stay here, while Bessie and I go get some of the action.”

“Wait,” I said, but it was too late. Matias was already charging at the shadows, yelling a Brazilian battle cry I didn’t fully understand.

The first two shadows Matias encountered he cleaved in half and they were dispelled with a loud hiss. Next, three possessed suburbanites, all of whom were much bigger than Matias attempted to tackle him. They slammed against him but crumbled as if they had run into a brick wall. To be honest it did look like Matias turned into stone for a moment. He calmly bonged them on the head with Bessie and more shadows escaped with a howl.

Heather glared at him.

“Why must the Orders interfere? That boy, that mask is ours,” she said in a deep growl.

“No, no I’m not,” I yelled from behind the safety of my car. “But if you want the mask, that’s fine by me. I’ll ship it to you as soon as I can get it off me.” I tried again to pry away the mask but only ended up pulling at my face. “Listen, just send me your mailing address and I’ll have it delivered. I already have a nice box for it. Heck, I’ll even pay for two-day shipping.”

“Shut up Little Idiot,” Lisa said, suddenly standing next to me. She was heaving for breath, the crackling air around her smelling like ozone.

So that’s how she had beat me to class? What a little cheater!

Behind Heather, more shades arrived reforming the horde. They seemed to be from the group that Lisa was dealing with earlier. There were no possessed people within their ranks, just the shadows.

“I successfully exorcised the lesser shades from the humans, but their number just kept growing. I’ve never dealt with so many before; it was endless,” Lisa said.

“I take back my compliment,” Matias grumbled. “Maybe, you’re not the best the Dragon has to offer.”

“I dispelled 45 shades and saved 23 people,” Lisa snapped. “How many have you done? Five?”

“Eight,” Matias corrected as he slashed through three more shadows.

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Anyway, we can’t take them all out by ourselves. They are far too many shades to handle right now. We need to get out of here.”

“How? Matias totaled my car,” I said.

Lisa sighed. “Of course he did.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault. She appeared from out of nowhere.” Matias argued.

“Yeah, but your eyes weren’t on the road when it happened,” I countered. “And your hands were definitely not at 9 and 3 on the wheel. If they had been then maybe-”

“Enough,” Lisa said. “We don’t have a means of escape. I would suggest we run away on foot but after that embarrassing display earlier, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She looked pointedly at me.

“You distracted me,” I mumbled.

“Anyway, since we can’t run,” she started.

“The only other option is to fight,” Matias grinned. “That’s fine by Bessie and me.”

Lisa sighed again. She muttered something in Japanese. I couldn’t translate it completely but my many years of watching anime told me that it wasn’t nice. She pulled out her bow and it sparked to life, currents of blue running through its string. “We will try to make a stand here, hopefully, the Lions are aware of what’s happening and have sent reinforcements. Little Idiot, you stay with me. Big Idiot, feel free to go crazy.”

“With pleasure,” Matias said. Without hesitation, he charged into the horde of shadows swinging Bessie around like a mad man; judging by that look in his eye he probably was. Lisa provided him with cover fire of lightning, each bolt hitting true. The army of shadows shrunk, but not by much as more emerged from Heather.

Lisa was right, this was endless.

How long would those two be able to last? Indefinitely? Maybe those two, Lisa of the Dragon and Matias of the Bull had endless power? Perhaps their respective masks gave them each a boundless reserve of energy? No, from how exhausted Lisa looked I didn’t think so. I didn’t know how long they would last.

The ringing swelled in my head again, the worst it had been so far. I fell to my side clutching my skull, almost blacking out from the pain.

“Hey, Little Idiot, are you ok?” Lisa said as she looked down, her voice filled with concern.

How sweet, right? I guess she really did care. Too bad her concern for my wellbeing was poorly timed. She stopped providing cover fire for Matias, and that was when Heather chose to enter the fray. She melted into her shadows and appeared behind Matias. With a left hook that would have made Muhammed Ali proud, she sent the poor boy flying into a tree. Matias crashed through the tree, knocking it down. He slumped to the ground with a groan.

“Matias,” Lisa cried as she readied her bow. She sent five bolts flying at Heather who wrapped herself in shadows. When the bolts hit, the shadows hissed and evaporated but Heather herself stood unfazed.

“Leave us the boy and the mask and save your friend,” Heather said. “Then we will leave without causing any more problems.”

Confession time! If it were me in Lisa’s position - my back against a wrecked car, with a horde of shadows in front of me - and if all I had to do to escape the situation was hand over a scrawny black kid who now smelled strangely of urine. Well, let’s just say that my choice would have been really easy to make.

But thank the big G.O.D I’m not Lisa. I said it before didn’t I, Lisa was different. She probably had ice, no, lightning, running through her veins. Despite the hopeless situation she calmly aimed her bow at Heather and smiled.

“Sorry, no deal.”

“You would really die to protect that good for nothing loser? Why?” Heather asked.

Ouch. That hurt. I didn’t know if that thing before us was Heather or not. But regardless, hearing those words come from her mouth really cut deep.

“Oh believe me, I already know Little Idiot is a good-for-nothing loser,” Lisa said.

Less of an ouch, but I guess it still stung.

“He’s not just a good for nothing loser; he’s also an idiot, a weakling, a mediocre sorry excuse for a human being and is the worst thing to happen to geek culture since the Star Wars sequels.”

Ok, that was a lot harsher, but I’ve been called worse.

“He’s probably going to live with his mom until his 40’s before she kicks him out, then he’s going to trick some poor woman into becoming his wife and popping out some children before she finally comes to her senses and leaves him for a better specimen of the male species.”

Damn, ok. Consider me officially hurt, but unfortunately, Lisa wasn’t done yet.

“Honestly, he’ll most likely die alone in the nursing home his children will inevitably stick him into while they try to forget about him and live out their lives. His grandkids will ask, “whatever happened to grandpa?” and their parents will pretend not to know him, preferring to erase any memory of this weak-willed creature.”

“Alright, alright,” I said, sitting up despite the pain in my head. “I think she gets it. I’m a good-for-nothing loser who’s going to die alone. You could have just said that.”

Lisa sighed. “Well despite all of that,” she said. “He’s Quincy’s little brother, and I promised I’d protect him.” She let loose a bolt from her bow.

I’m going to have to add a disclaimer for this next part; to this day I’m still not 100% sure about the accuracy of what happened next. Again, it might have been the panic, the ringing in my head, or the fumes from my newly soiled pants. Perhaps it was some unholy combination of all three.

As Lisa’s bolts flew at Heather her shadows cocooned around her, and once again she was left unharmed. Heather growled and charged, a wave of shadows surging behind her. Suddenly - and here's why I have the disclaimer - the sun fell from the sky.

Ok, so it wasn’t really the sun, but it was a giant ball of pure golden light that turned the dark nighttime, bright like day so it might as well have been the sun.

“Close your eyes,” Lisa ordered as she placed herself before me, her eyes closed.

I did as I was told.

You know how when you close your eyes and look at a light source you can still kinda feel the brightness behind your eyelids? This was like that only a million times brighter. If Lisa hadn’t warned me or hadn’t shielded me with her body, I would have definitely gone blind.

I felt a wave of warmth pass through me and I heard hisses so loud I thought an orchestra of snakes had joined the party.

When the light died down and Lisa felt it safe enough to move, she did.

All the shadows were gone. Heather was gone.

A man stood alone in the middle of the road. He still had a bit of light emanating from him that was slowly fading. He had a short white afro buzzed in a fade and he wore blue jeans and a white t-shirt. He turned around and on the t-shirt was a faded symbol of a haloed herald blowing into a trumpet, a bit of merch I recognized instantly.

On his face, the man wore a golden mask carved in the shape of a lion.

“Thank God. It looks like Commander Douglas and the Lions were monitoring the situation,” Lisa said as she sat down next to me.

A few yards away a helicopter landed and more people, all of whom also wore similar golden lion masks, rushed out to help the knocked-out Greenhill residents.

The man with the halo herald t-shirt walked towards us. He waved his hand over his mask and it disappeared.

I couldn’t believe it but staring down at me was Davos Teare. The same Davos Teare, who was captain of the Halo Herald from The Epic of the Atlas Dawn.

I wanted to scream, to full-on fanboy freakout at this fictional character come to life. However, all I could manage was a halfhearted “Woohoo” as the world tilted on its side and everything went black.