Each time Soren threw a punch or slashed with his hands, Aedan put a crossguard in his face and slowly carved small nicks, cuts, and bruises into Soren's flesh. But Soren's conscious mind was somewhere else. Aedan could tell that the beast that had come to the fore was not Soren’s true self. What was going on? he wondered.

Hate and anger filled the void in Soren's mind. He attacked whatever was near, and shapes slowly began blurring in his vision until all he saw was red.

He railed against the words Daymion had spat, fighting with all his might to push back the tide of emotions that were surfacing from within: anger, hate, rage, and—most disturbing of all—helplessness and guilt. The more he fought against himself, the deeper he sank. With each passing breath, the crimson mist got deeper and deeper, consuming his being.

An image unfolded before him, and Soren found himself back in the barn, in a waking dream. The animals were frightened. They shifted in the same way as in previous dreams. The tension in the night air indicated that a predator was near, and the animals could smell its presence.

Danger pervaded Soren's senses as he tried to clear his mind, but the crimson mist crowded his vision. Time sped up in the dream, and he found himself already through the barn doors, past the field, and at the doors to the ominous house.

Soren turned the handle. It was so familiar, and a compelling feeling invited him in.

Time sped up again, and he passed into the house. Now he was at the top of the stairs. Danger was close, and he felt its presence inside his mind. There was a warning: Something was coming, though it was not yet there. The red mist continued to hover in the outer field of his vision.

Soren knew in the back of his mind what was going to happen next. He was going to go into the little girl's room, where there was someone special to him, someone he knew well...but who was it? The cloud of emotion blocked his mind from knowing her relationship to him, no matter how hard he tried.

Time sped up yet again, and he went through the door into her room. There was the tinkling of crystal bells—the only sound—which split the night with their clear ringing.

The air was still, and yet it was wracked with tension, as if a single breath at the wrong moment would set off a chain of events that could never be undone.

The air took on a ruddy tint. The red mist closed in on him.

Slowly, inexorably, Soren walked toward the bed. His feet found the familiar path, and before long he was staring down at the girl. Her face was pale and unmoving in the blue light of the moon, cast down on them from the window nearby.

"No!" he cried as he rushed forward.

Soren carefully gathered the girl into his arms and looked down at her porcelain face. His body was shaking uncontrollably with grief. He said something he knew was important, though once again his words sounded muffled and just out of reach in the gloom.

The red mist continued to close in until all he could see was her face. Suddenly her eyes flew open, and a shock of electricity spiked through his body. This was new.

She grabbed him, pulled him close to her with surprising force, and turned her head at an oblique angle.

"Deartháir, he needs you!"

The name she whispered hit him like deathly echoes from across the veil that caused the dream to shatter and the morbid image of her visage to disappear.

The red mist in Soren's mind instantly dissipated, and he was clearheaded again. The calculating fighter's mind found its way back to the fore, and he was himself again.

A warm feeling spread through his body, and the uncontrolled rage was replaced with a sweet, familial feeling, like two small, comforting arms draped about his neck. It was almost as if there were a gentle and caring spirit hovering close to him.

When he snapped out of his reverie, he found himself back in Diametries's office, asking himself a strange question: Why was this man pounding him in the face?

Rhea’s barrier was failing quickly with every slash from Kestrel and every whipping strike from Diametries’s golden energy thread.

"I need you, my dear!" Rhea called to Penndarius.

"My head!" Penndarius cried in agony as he grasped his forehead to try to ease the pressure. "My mind is being cut in two!" he yelled as the throbbing seemed to slice deep gashes and whip against his thoughts and memories.

"I need…," Rhea gasped and struggled valiantly as the remnants of her barrier were cut apart, wavered, and flickered rapidly as it started to fail entirely. "...help!" she called in a whisper as she struggled valiantly against Kestrel's and Diametries's final push.

Another throbbing stroke slashed through Penndarius like a wave, and he grimaced in agony as he felt as if his mind were starting to fray at the edges and break apart. Time slowed, and when the next cut fell, a budding realization took root in his mind. The pain was a clue.

The scholar worked quickly to put the pieces together, and they seemed to coalesce all at once. The pulses that Diametries and Kestrel were putting out correlated directly with his own pain. The duo cut downward one more time, and the remnants of Rhea's barrier, which were all that remained between Rhea and Penndarius and the two malicious entities, suddenly disappeared.

Rhea fell to the ground and tried to grab hold of Kestrel's foot as he walked slowly toward the scholar. The indigo-hued vaedziur callously kicked her hand away, and Diametries followed close behind. They took their time. Kestrel was savoring the final moment of triumph, while Diametries appeared above it all, as if it were just one big nuisance.

"The prize, ever so sweet! Let me eat this boy's mind and take its essence as my own," Kestrel pleaded with the Speaker.

"Do as you will, but be done with it quickly," Diametries said impassively as he frowned at

Kestrel in distaste. "He need not suffer."

"You spoil my fun!" Kestrel moaned, pouting.

Despite the pressure of current events, Penndarius was intently focused. Pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together in the scholar's mind. This was not a dreamscape in an alternate dimension—this was something far more personal. Diametries and Kestrel had penetrated his mind and were in his consciousness, not the other way around. The pounding pain had happened rhythmically with their attacks against Rhea. The sky changed, when they entered, to match their respective powers. And then there was the chair. Penndarius remembered the chair from his earlier experience and how he had made it appear on a whim. Deep in his core, he knew that this was no different.

"Yesss...," Kestrel hissed to himself as he raised his claw to deliver the final blow. "Give me your soul!" he whispered to the scholar. "I hope you feel the pain I have felt as I burn your conscious mind into nothingness."

A blaze of white flame tinged with green began in the scholar's eyes. They lit up slowly at first, but when Kestrel's claw fell, Penndarius looked up at him, and the attack stopped in place.

Above them in the spinning turmoil of gold and red appeared a pinprick-size area of neutral sky that had not been there before.

"What is this that spoils my fun?" Kestrel asked in confusion, looking to his hand as though it had betrayed him.

Penndarius slowly rose from his knees until he was gazing down at the vaedziur. His eyes continued to brighten with an otherworldly white light, and with a wave of his hand Kestrel was cast violently away from Penndarius across the neutral ground.

A wind picked up around them and whipped Diametries's long, black ponytail about. The inky blue vaedziur skidded along the ground and used his claw to lean in and steady himself as he came to rest next to the Speaker with his gaze squarely locked onto Penndarius. Rage burned in his eyes as he kept them centered on his prey.

The scholar was fully cognizant of his surroundings. He was aware of Rhea's presence, and he was aware of Diametries's demeanor as he viewed the scholar before him in all his glory. As Penndarius walked purposefully toward Kestrel, the vaedziur was pushed away from the scholar.

The neutral sky began to eat away at the evil surrounding it. Diametries opened his eyes wide with surprise.

"Kestrel, what is this faltering?" he demanded as his eyes repeatedly flickered up to the struggle that had begun in the sky above him. "Kill him!" he ordered. "Finish this now!"

"My apologies, Speaker, but I may need your assistance with this puppet," Kestrel said as he strained against the scholar's will, and the humor vanished from his scaled face.

The Speaker cast tendrils of golden energy that reached out toward Penndarius with malicious purpose, but they were all deflected away from the scholar harmlessly.

"No! I reject you!" Penndarius said confidently, and in response a white flame exploded around his body that included the area where he was standing. "You have no power here!" he said.

As the scholar pushed himself to new heights, he saw something appear that was both familiar and alien to him. A link of power between Diametries and Kestrel was fully visible to him now. The gift Penndarius had inherited from birth had evolved. Instead of just seeing it, now he felt it as a tangible manifestation. Curious, he reached out with his mind and touched it. He smiled as if he knew something the Speaker and Kestrel did not. With a mental yank on the connection, Diametries and Kestrel were thrown backwards and skidded along the ground, forced away against their will.

"Just moments ago he was on his knees, about to crumble," Diametries roared. "What gives him this power?"

"I do not know, my master!" Kestrel replied in disbelief.

"I will not suffer your presence in my mind anymore," the scholar said with deliberate, clipped words. Then he grabbed hold of the connecting bond between the two, and his face turned steely. "You are not welcome here!" he yelled, and the white fire exploded around him like an inferno, the rim of its aura tinged with green.

It felt tangible, as though the scholar had reached out, and the link had just flown into his hands. Diametries's eyes opened in shock, as did Kestrel's. Penndarius yanked on the thread with all his mental might, and Kestrel and Diametries skidded toward him until they were a mere hair's breadth away. Each of their faces was stamped with shock at the sudden turn of events.

The white sky completely consumed the gold-and-red tempest of energy above them until, as far as the eye could see, the calm neutrality that had been there before had fully returned. "You made one mistake,” Penndarius said with a smirk. “You assumed I was a puppet.” Diametries’s eyes widened in anger.

“Leave," Penndarius said in a soft whisper. Then a powerful wind kicked up around the scholar that seemed not to touch him, but it cast Diametries and Kestrel away and into oblivion.

They both tumbled through the air and vanished from sight.

As the perversion of their presence disappeared from Penndarius's mind, he fell to his knees with relief. The scholar was spent, breathing heavily as the weight of his actions hit his awareness. His mental fortitude crumbled and nearly vanished.

"Well done, dear...well done, indeed!" Rhea said. Also exhausted, she laughed and then collapsed into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.  

- End of Episode -

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