Am... Am I dying?
Graham could barely think. Something strange .... happening. The... The star. It was doing this.
With what little strength left to him, Graham wrenched his eyeball upward. To see and try and make sense... of...
What he saw brought a gasp of fear. The star was no longer a shiny point of light, nor a dispersion of pretty sparkles. It was him! He stared at his own face, body, clothes.
It was hard to stay afraid. Hard to stay ... awake... No! Keep the fear close! Don't let it absorb him! The copy was trying to become him, to kill him!
He wanted to strike out at the imposter, to kick or thrash or yell. But he couldn't even sit up. How... how could he beat this creature?! So powerful...
There came a chuckling. Oh, yes. I am quite powerful. Stop resisting or it'll only be less comfortable to you.
The voice... The star. They were one. And it was not the Blue Woman. No. He could sense her. This... thing was very much like her, yet...
Frowning internally, trying to keep at least partial awareness, Graham maintained enough of his faculties to come to a conclusion. If this was like the Blue Woman, it could fear him, too. If he were like the false children and could manipulate his surroundings, then he could find a way to touch the look-alike creature.
Graham never knew how he was able to do it. Not for a long time. With his strength slipping, he lapsed into a state of calm that, oddly, caught the star creature by surprise. He felt that surprise, as he felt it draw closer. Graham did not think on that. He kept the calm, ignored the approach. He waited, waited in the calm, fought the need to feel fear as the thing came so, so near. He heard its concern and worry. And that is when he struck.
As if a tug of war within a time that stood still, Graham had used every bit of himself left to grab and hold onto his attacker. And then, feeling it desperate to get its strength back, Graham knew he'd won. He was weak but merely grabbing the struggling and flailing impersonator revitalized him. He stood, felt very powerful indeed. A lion who held a squeaking mouse by the throat.
"Now... Leave me b--..." He trailed off, for the creature was disappearing rapidly. No. Not disappearing. His grip tightened on nothing as a great sensation filled him. And a great, greedy grin spread across his face. And he laughed a horrible gleeful laugh. He felt good. Very good! Strong! Yet... There was a sadness that lingered, and fear.
"No!" he commanded, fists clenched. He would not feel what others feel! Not again. He had the power, and amazingly the knowledge, to navigate this realm at will. And he would use it. Anything to distract from the other emotions.
With a smirk, he took a step. All around him changed. He stood atop a snow-capped peak, seen miles away from his previous step. Graham didn't even step the next time. He merely thought of going and there he ended up. Inside the mitchuu's mountain cave. Empty...
Some sense snapped him back, though the question was answered by himself just as it was asked. What had happened?
Obviously, he could absorb the beings here by holding onto them, and thus gain their memories, skills, abilities. And their loose minds. Graham growled, gritting his teeth at the frantic little thoughts pinging his awareness.
"Stop it or I'll will you out of existance." Graham seethed, then delighted in the cowering obeyance of the other personality. It had no real weight over him, nor any power. Graham had its power now and for that, he grinned again. He liked this.
But the others... Oh, yes. There were others, like the one he'd taken. All with different specialties. Five total entities. The Blue Woman was Two. They were now his equals. He didn't like this. They were a threat. They would stop him from going back to Tiara.
He did not know from the one he'd captured where the others were or what they were called, nor what place this was... Yet. It was a weak thing. If he pressed, it would tell him what he desired.
But that wasn't what he wanted. Not yet. He desired the chase, to catch his prey. Dropping to a slight crouch, Graham smiled a viscious smile and disappeared. Find them and eat them, too, was precisely the focused desire in his mind.
"It has taken Five!" Three split, dispersed, could not keep a straight thought!
Four collected the frantic member of their group. Two and One were unsteady but not panicked.
"Is there nothing we can do? It is Yord all over again!"
Four gave the impression of a nod but did not respond.
"What shall we do?" Two demanded again, frightened but needing answers.
Four sighed gently, expressing only calm for them. "We must do as we always do."
"But it knows. If it should find us, what then?" Two looked at One, then Four.
"We cannot stop it."
Two stared at One for such speaking.
"Correct." Four agreed.
"You have planned this??" Two could not believe it.
"Not Five's impetuous decision, nor Graham's swift adaptations, but yes."
"Why?? Do you not see that Graham could come and claim you as well? You were all that stood between Yord and 'freedom', just as Graham now views us. Graham is more adept than Yord ever was, and with Five's intense Desire... If you, too, are taken, how will we survive then?"
Four smiled patiently, as if to a child. "We must adapt."
"But... Four, that is not clear enough. Our positions are--"
"Are inadequate to suit Graham. Clearly, this provoked him. And it will provoke us to adapt so that we may do as we have always done." Four's stare bore holes in the other three so they might see. One had brought up an excellent opening to get at the heart of the matter. It was about time, too.
Their awareness shifted, almost as one. They shifted, gone.
Graham appeared in a very strange place indeed. A nexxus. Nothing around at all; floor, ceiling, earth, nor air. He had thought only that he wished to find the other controllers here and so here he had appeared. His eye closed, he felt the area without use of tangible faculties, using what he had gained from the entity he'd consumed, and grinned.
"They were here... I'll catch you all!" he called out, knowing they would hear. And if he tried very hard, perhaps he could hear them...
Oh, how one of them shrieked as he stalked it! This was not the Blue Woman either but no matter. As it tried to escape in and out of pockets of space, Graham eagerly gave chase. He grew tired of it quickly, however, and changed the game. He waited, listened patiently, caught the gibbering trail of thoughts, and pounced in true kldrieh style. Just like in the old days, before...
No getting distracted, lest his prey slip from him.
"Please don't!" it cried. "Let me go!"
This one was different than the one he'd taken. This was Three. More knowledge came to him, from the first as well as directly from the panicked Three. The more he held Three, the more he absorbed. It looked different, too. It was yellow and composed of fine filaments, like frayed wire or yarn. How odd. He ignored the thing only long enough to examine it and thought nothing against taking it in both arms and holding it tightly until it was absorbed.
A sharp shudder tremored through his body. Three was filled with so many conflicts. All attempted to align with Graham at once. The hairs of his body prickled up, he felt he should release the two poor creatures, he wanted to fight Kagetsu, he wanted to cry and cry for Tiara abandoning him!
"Rrraaahh!!" Graham yelled, clenching his head and pounding a fist against the ground that wasn't there until the sensation could be controlled. What power had Three to drive him mad?!
"Enough of this!" His greed for stalking and claiming victims banished by the second entity's barage, Graham stood, located the next one, and was there.
This did not run. It was One. It stood quiet and still and Graham at first did not approach. They stood in yet another nexxus. It made Graham wary. He did not like the nexxi, because it was more difficult to sense any thought or form of trap. They could still be trying to cage him.
This One... It was also very different from the first two. It was red, human-shaped, but the shapes were too perfect. It looked like a chiselled thing, a thinking piece of art.
"Why do you not run from me? Are you not afraid I'll eat you?"
"It makes sense to be afraid, but none to run. You would catch me."
"Please don't take any more, Graham."
The Blue Woman! Where...
She-- It-- became visible close by One's side. 'She' was as different from the others as anything could be. In appearance, the entity was furred gray with black spots, stripes, and whorls. It walked on four legs. And it was a young-looking thing. Only slightly older than Yellow appeared...
"I see now." They were the same person. "You purposefully deceived me to subdue me!" Livid instantly, he rushed Two.
"Graham, you don't understand!"
He meant to tackle Two completely and full-on, though he would get no joy from it, but One appeared in his path and was engulfed by his charge instead.
And he stopped. And knew. The five were aspects. Desire, Humanity, and now Logic. They were protectors, and seekers. They had specific jobs in this place--
The other two crowded over One's presence and knowledge, clouding it from his view.
A deep growl started in Graham's throat but nothing budged.
"So be it. If you won't let me know, I will take you all." He stepped closer to Two.
The child took a step back and traced a symbol in the air. Nothing happened. Graham proceeded. He would not be deterred.
His plan ran aground as he collided not with a physical wall but one of pleas and fear and a child's cries. So struck with grief and an appauling need to be comforted, Graham staggered back. He shook himself out of it but Two was gone.
It didn't matter. One could track the whereabouts of any-- No. Not just One. As a group they could pinpoint anyone anywhere in this place. He had three of them. And so he knew Two hadn't gone far. Knowing this also, the small form reappeared.
"Please don't do this, Graham. Release them. Please. I will tell you anything you want to know."
"Why should I trust a thing you say, especially as I can easilly take you and anything you possess?"
"That is Desire talking. Don't let it control you." Two commanded sternly, sounding every bit the part of the Blue Woman she'd pretended to be.
A moment's pause. A blink. That was true. The five entities were controllers of aspects because they wielded the power of their stations. He had their power now and used it negligently and on a whim, letting the power control him.
"Yes." Two stepped closer, hands spread out to him. "Don't you see? You will only hurt yourself and others the longer you--"
"It doesn't matter." Graham locked eyes with the entity known as Two. "What matters is getting back to Tiara. I will not give up. I will not stop searching for a way back!"
"But that is why you are--"
He didn't let Two finish. He'd crouched and launched himself forward before the child could react. Hands beginning to come up as an ineffectual shield, the unknown entity passed into him.
What power, what aspect, did Two carry? Graham waited, then cringed at the onslaught. Not from Two, who huddled, helpless, with the others, but from the released scythe of Compassion which threatened to chop his legs from underneath him, sever him for such heinous wrong-doings, and slice his heart with the weight of still carrying them out.
It would have succeeded in taking him over, had he not already the other three. Logic argued that Compassion was out of line. Desire wanted them all to move. Humanity? That insane aspect wanted it all. In a wish to be harmonious, it drove everything into a frenzy until he couldn't stand it!
Graham moved himself to somewhere --anywhere!-- solid just so he could pound his head against a wall! Despite injury and absurdity, it helped.
"There are other, better ways of controlling the aspects of human-kind than bashing one's head in." came a new voice.
Graham looked up, whirling around. A man...?
It was not a man, though that is what it looked like. Just an average, middle-aged, non-descript human. Graham blinked, wondered if his ability to see the entities as they ereally were had left him.
"No, it's working, I assure you. I'm just... slightly different than my fellows." It was seated in a chair, calm as ages, and smiling slightly at him. "I've been wanting to talk with you for some time now. Join me?" A hand opened to a chair positioned now just beside the stranger.
Graham would not sit. "You are called Four, yes? What would you possibly have to say to me?"
"Ah. Straight to the point. And you are controlling the aspects even more than I thought you could. Very good." It reclined even more. "Yes. I am Four."
It eyed him a moment, a very deep gaze that shook even those entities inside of him. They were no longer hiding knowledge from him. They simply did not know much about Four. But it was clearly the strongest of the five. None of the others knew what Four thought.