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Before Anthony knew it, he was jerking and squirming on the floor as Louis' darkness passed through his body. It was so different... ...so different. His jaw was tight; his fingers desperately seeking to grab onto something but instead kept clawing at the balcony floor and clenching from time-to-time.

Louis' voice became distant, but the young man was still able to make-out his words. Like he said, even with the discomfort, it was surprisingly easier to focus.

"Follow my heart, follow my heart, follow my heart..." he kept thinking.

[Subconscious ~.~ Hall of Mirrors]

The knight's eyes suddenly shot open. The discomfort was gone, but its presence still somewhat felt not within him but around him as if something was pressing against him, like a pressure, just enough to be felt but not to hinder.

He was alone...

Anthony glanced around him. Nothing. He slowly stood and as he did, tall, fun-house mirrors began to form and circle and spin around him, each reflecting a unique image of his personalities.

Timidness. Playfulness. Faithfulness. Love. Forgiveness. Depression. Indifference. Bitterness. Rage. Hatred. Jealousy. Fear.

Appropriately, he stood in the middle.

Suddenly, Louis' voice echoed through the hall: "...where your greatest potential lies." A crimson jagged lines began to form beneath his feet and spread. The floor began to crack. The knight looked down for the first time, noticing he stood upon a large stained-glass window. The image was of him--half his face cast in darkness with a glowing red eye, the other half illuminated.

Finally, the glass shattered and he, along with the fun-house mirrors, began to fall. He fell in what seemed to by an infinitely long cylinder-shaped room, its walls covered in mirror, each playing a memory from his past. He reached wildly to grab for something, but nothing was around him. The pressure he felt before slowly began to build. He began to panic.

The young man kept reaching out, though, not willing to give up. The mirrors were so close. If he could just grab onto one... ...just one.

Suddenly, a rope of darkness began to slither down his arm, wrapping around it as it did like some twisted barber's pole, until it rested and began to build in the palm of his hand. The pressure was intense now to a point his body felt like it was about to fold in on itself.

Just as his body couldn't take it anymore, the rope shot out of his palm and lassoed around one of the mirrors and pulled it towards him at incredible speed. He couldn't slow the mirror down as he came hurling at him.

But just before it crashed into him, things seemed to have slowed down. The reflection in the mirror stared back at Anthony with eyes oozing with confidence. They both locked eyes long enough for the young man to make-out which personality it was. And it smiled at him. A twisted malicious grin.

The two collided and just as the glass shattered, the world around him was swallowed in an explosion of white light and a piercing screech.

[Shipwreck Cove ~.~ Secluded Balcony]

Anthony shot up on the balcony floor, breathing heavily and frightfully looking around him as he tried to collect clues as to where he was. Memories flooded his mind of times he was used, like some welcome mat, lied to, hurt, abandoned, and betrayed. He felt pain. He felt vengeance. He felt rage.

The knight glanced up at Louis, his breathing slowly easing now. When his eyes--eyes oozing with confidence--met the others, he gave the arcanist that same twisted malicious grin the personality in the mirror gave him.

[Sayrike::Shipwreck Cove::Balcony]

Louis hadn't answered her question--people seemed to be doing a lot of that lately--but if he wasn't going to tell, it wasn't her business to pry.

The invitation to breakfast sounded appealing, but only because it would be a chance to get to socialize with Louis and Jenny a bit more. "Well, I'm not really hungry since I usually don't eat breakfast anyway, but I guess I should shove something more into my stomach considering I don't know when the next meal is going to be." Truthfully, right now the smell of anything cooked, like eggs or meat, would make Sayrike's stomach turn. Maybe she was a little nervous after all.

She stretched and yawned. "Goodness gracious, I'm still tired. Are we allowed to use the training room to sleep in? Doesn't it have some time compression thing? I could use a few more hours," she joked, but immediately continued to wonder aloud, "I wonder if the kitchens have yogurt or granola?" Her brain, always three subjects ahead of whatever her mouth was saying, could really make Sayrike seem random and scatterbrained sometimes...

"Anyway, shall we?" The masked girl began to lead the way to the kitchens, familiar with the route by this point. "Ah, if only something from here could keep underwater..."

"Hold under water," Louis contemplated the topic, "What about pineapple? Oranges? Coconut?" Louis counted on his fingers pointlessly as he angled his eyes up to the sky with a comical look on his face, "Cranberries? Any kind of fruit besides bananas... never really thought about it. Good question."

Louis paused as they walked then chuckled, "Sorry, that was a rhetorical question wasn't it?" he turned and looked at Jenny, "You know, despite the terrible circumstance, I can't help but find you both incredibly lucky. An entire city under the sea and you can just swim down there no problem. That's amazing."

"Hmm, berries yes, but I ... I can't imagine opening your mouth to eat a berry and have a flood of sea water too," Jenny responded quizzically as she scratched the top of her head in thought. Bleh, taking gulps of seawater was something she was definitely going to avoid. Or try to, at the very least. Then of course... talking required the mouth opening and closing and... oh, she'd just let magic solve all of that. Don't question it too much...

Jenny smiled sadly as she looked at Louis, there had to be a way for him to go down to Atlantica too. "Maybe, you can ask someone to enchant you and then you can come with! Or, maybeeee... you can try a dress sphere? Who knows... it might work?" The mage pondered aloud before Sayrike posed her question. She thought back to Final Fantasy XII, were there fruits? It seemed like such an insignificant detail that she couldn't recall at all. They have no chocolate milk, but surely they have fruits... right?

Riku silently pondered, trying to come up with something else, some other piece of information she might need in the coming battle.

"Nothing comes to mind," he finally said with a sigh, shrugging. "Just remember, you're never alone. None of us are. You've all lost something important, and those of us that haven't know how it feels. We have that much as a common bond."

"Of course I know what fruit are," Louis laughed and gave her a quizzical look, "What would give you the idea that I wouldn't? What did you think, the people of Archadia don't eat?" Louis went silent for a moment, listening as Jenny responded to his comment before, drawing the conversation away from the topic on eatable plants, "Sadly, I really must stay on the surface. As much as I'd love to join you, I have talents that could very well be put to good use coordinating the coming battle."

Easier said then done. Anthony could feel himself panic even more after Louis told him not to. He tried to focus on the emotion, but it was so foreign to him. He wasn't use to it.

The orb continued to twist and turn. He could feel his darkness grow more agitated with his hesitation.

"Control it," the knight urged himself. "Get a grip over it!"

His inability to control the orb and his urge to control it did exactly what needed to be done--fill him with rage. The young man grew more and more frustrated at the thought of failure and slowly grew more angry. It allowed him to focus more on the memories that filled him with rage, and as a result the orb began to calm down until it returned to its original state.

Anthony was relieved, but he didn't allow the taste of rage to leave his tongue like last time. He focused on the emotion and allowed the darkness to pour out. He grew confident and began to pass the orb from one hand to the other.

Though foreign to him, the freedom his rage gave him came naturally and he willingly accepted it.

Jenny dropped the subject of coming down to Atlantic with a pouting frown but said nothing else. She felt a bit guilty too, he knew where he'd be the most help and stuck to it honorably. Goodness knows that she picked Atlantica for a fair share of her own selfish reasons. Not wanting to dwell on the thoughts any longer, she derailed the train and brought it back to the conversation NOT happening in her head.

The aromas of breakfast wafted around her and it made the mage realize just how hungry she was. "Breakfast definitely has the best foods! Aside from oatmeal... plain oatmeal, bleh, unless you dress it up in honey and cinnamon and... right, rambling," Jenny cut herself short, wondering if it was the pre-battle jitters that had her so crazy.

Smiling in thanks as Sayrike offered to save the seats, Jenny then turned to Louis with a big smile as she waved her arm across the room. "Whatcha in the mood to eat?"