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TK listens the first time, and there is a peculiar ringing in his ears that makes him furrow his brows. He hears the voice a second time, and he realizes his body has been frozen. He uncurls his fingers first, then his wrist, then his elbow, he moves his body joint by joint until he can freely move around again. He closes his eyes, briefly remembers. Now there was only one Great Knight of old, and he cannot tell if he trusts the man or not.

Probably not.

Unlike many knights, he is not struck by the Great King’s awe-inspiring visage. He can only stare at him through half-narrowed eyes. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Do you even kno—

They look up together, and TK concludes that the King knows. He knows at least something, but he cannot say if the King knows everything. Looking at the creatures fight each other in the vortex makes him anxious, but he says nothing. He merely looks back at the King and narrows his gaze suspiciously at Merlin.

He takes a cautious step back at the mirror’s reappearance, and he is tempted to tell the Great King about this mirror, about the deaths and chaos this object as created with its mere existence, but it is too late. Merlin has already begin his betrayal, his revenge.

TK reaches for his weapon, but it’s too late. He bends over in pain, one eye squeezed shut. Something crawls over his skin, and he looks down to realize it’s the crystals again, only this time he can feel them growing inside his body. With each breath he swears he can feel rocks in his lungs, and it’s hindering his ability to grasp for air.

Breathe.

He tries.

Yuki had been consumed with anger, just before pain suddenly overcame him. Sharp crystal piercing and wounding him, his voice caught in his throat made him unable to even cry out with the shock and confusion of it all. Everything was collapsing around them in seemingly the same instant, and between that moment and when Yuki was aware that he was walking it was a mystery to him if he'd actually been conscious at all.

He was purely panic in his mind, even as his own control was locked away and something else controlled him. The white knight didn't understand, wanted and willed himself to fight against the unseen force to regain control of his own body. It didn't work; it never worked. He was only capable of watching while he himself participated in murdering Lancelot. Just killing the Great Knight was a trauma, but it didn't even stop with his death. The violence continued until there was no recognizable corpse left. Until the man that had offered Yuki - not just him, but all of them - protection and healing was nothing more than unidentifiable gore around and on them.

He'd failed his own Great Knight, and the vision of the man's eyes when he resigned himself to death made him want to scream in anguish. Unfortunately, Yuki didn't have the control over himself to even do that. That anguish mixed with a sickening and very much foreign feeling of satisfaction.

There was nothing here for Yuki to be pleased about, and it alarmed him to feel the surge of satisfaction coiling into his mind where he should have been mourning. It was a merciful event, in a manner, for him to lose consciousness.

.....

A voice told him to wake up, and for a second Yuki had a vague hope that everything had been a nightmare... The burning in his lungs and the pain over his body assured him that it was not the case. He looked up to see the man who had called to them, and the sob that caught in the white knight's throat was hardly one of happiness or relief.

Why had he been too late?

He looked from the Great King himself, to the sword and sheath at his hip. "I'm sorry..." Yuki's voice escaped in a breath, barely a whisper. Whether it was an apology to the sheath as she called out in sadness, or to Lancelot, even he didn't know for certain.

As he followed the Great King's gaze skyward, then, the world made no sense to him. He could not fathom whether the shadows fighting against one another was some light of hope, or the final shred that they would all witness of madness before everything ended.

Their King assured them; hope.

Yuki felt his stomach drop at the name of the man he called for. No.

And he wanted so desperately not to follow them. To avoid seeing the carnage of what had happened in that room. But... There was nothing. No evidence of Lancelot losing his life so violently. How long ago had it been? Yuki didn't understand how it was possible.

He gazed forward to the shadow - woman? - in the mirror, familiarity pulling at him, but nothing more. Subconsciously, a hand went to his hip, a strange sensation there against his skin. Something he could not identify either, for it was forgotten and the mark of Morgana's curse was out of sight.

It was strange, how everything seemed to be happening in slow-motion and yet still too swiftly for Yuki to rightly process it all. As their new Great Knights stepped forward, Yuki looked to Estel and Jason in dread. He didn't want to witness this. Especially not after what had just happened to Lancelot.

He couldn't take watching Jason die, but he kept his eyes on the man in manner of silent support. The white knight's heart ached, though, as he tried to prepare himself for the worst.

The Great King had apparently expected something. Something that did not happen. Yuki released a deep breath that he hadn't realized that he had been holding, relieved at the fact that his friend still lived.

But the relief was short. Perhaps they wouldn't live long, after all.

Yuki recoiled slightly from the facets of crystal, struggling between trying to watch Merlin and wanting to shut his eyes entirely to rid the risk of seeing a ghastly reflection similar to himself.

His eyes could only widen instead, the sudden sound of Merlin's staff base hitting stone hitting his ears as his breath caught again in a shrill gasp, his body on the cold ground again before he could even realize that he'd collapsed. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, imagined only that they were all about to finally die.

It was a far too familiar sensation to have his own consciousness pushed back, locked out of control of his own body, left to helplessly watch as a will not his own was carried out against a man that he wouldn't have raised a weapon to.

As soon as his body lurched forward, attacked their King, Yuki drew back of his own will. He wasted no time in rounding to defend him instead, but in a blink that control was gone again and the weapon's desire to shed the King's blood reigned his actions.

His mind was a whirl of clashing emotion, memories, pain of both the psychological and physical...

And then nothing.

Not even the memory of who - or what - he was.

Shayne slowly woke up as he heard some calling to him. When he full woke up, he saw someone; someone that look like the great king. He slowly sat up as he tried to remember what just happened. However, it was all a bur to the poor boy until he saw Lancelot's lifeless body. When the great king looked up into the sky, Shayne couldn't help and to do the same. However, Shayne's eyes widen as he was seeing two being having an epic battle in the sky. When he was about to replied to the great king, Merlin had show up out of nowhere.

He slowly got up and followed the Great King and Merlin as he was listening to them talking. Sooner or later, Merlian began to show his evil plans to them both. "My weapon?" Shayne mumbled to himself as realized what's Merlin was up to. Shayne's reflex bow slowly began to take over on as he was trying to fight it off. "No! Please no, Mabel!" Shayne called out as he was fighting to stay in controlled of his body. Shortly after, everything turn white.

Wake up. He knew he should, but he didn't want to. By his hands, and many others, Lancelot had perished, and where he should have felt chagrin, or disgust with himself, for actions that he'd had no control over, he simply did not. Instead, there had been excitement, a sheer pleasure for the spilling of blood, no matter who's.

He may have been controlled, but had not been made to do something he did not enjoy.

There was something wrong with him. He felt it, somewhere deep inside of him. It was becoming harder and harder to ignore now, but he thought, briefly, if he did not wake up, he would not have to face it.

But he did awaken. He was roused, only to not have to face it, but instead face him, the great king, he who had been lost, he who Lancelot had said was dead. So, the white knight had lied? Why?

There was barely time to think about it, for even a moments worth of pondering was cut off abruptly by what he witnessed next. Morgana, in the mirror, shattered and destroyed. The Seals, a sacrifice, and no way to stop himself as he moved towards it with the other recently named great knights. He didn't want to go. He desperately tried to stop himself. This had not been part of his plan, but that which he had planned to avoid, with, hopefully, the Sidhe queens help.

But she was gone, dismissed, and all he had left of her was the butterfly etched on the back of his hand. She could not save him now.

His desperate thoughts turned towards Na'ima, to his love for her, and how much he did not want to leave her. Not now, not like this, certainly not without one last goodbye...

His hands pressed against the seal, his eyes closed.

He waited for an inevitable that did not come.

There was only a split second of hope, of self control, enough to look behind him and to smile, relieved.

And then chaos.

And then white.

For as long as Lass could remember all she had wanted was power, the feeling of strength and the ability to choose her own fate by force, but it felt as if it was merely ripped away. Torn from her grasp of her fingers, she didn’t want to, she didn’t want to kill Lancelot. True she had little interest in such a man and the mere fact that she was not picked as a Great Knight was likely due to him but she had no wished his death. The feeling of being nothing more than mere puppet made it feel as if someone’s hands where around her neck, her air slowly being closed away.

Everything had gone dark, there was silence now and blackness as a voice spoke, wake up. Her body didn’t move, no, not until it spoke again that a feeling of warmness seeping from her fingertips that Lass began to move, her eyes fluttering open as the cold floor pressed against her body. She was back, the throne room again, but this time the black crystals were gone and in its place stood a figure. Getting to her feet she quickly bowed, it was him, the Great King had returned finally. Glancing over her eyes watched his sword almost calling in some strange sad way before feeling the ache of Lancelot’s death again. True, she could have on a personal level, not have cared about the man but he did not deserve to be betrayed.

Betrayed by all of them.

Gritting her teeth she looked up to the sky, the swarm of blackness moving and shifting alive with bodies, creatures opposing one another. Something shadow like a dragon moving as its teeth sank into a feathery woman, as the words of war rang through Lass’s head. Finally, this was what she had waited for, becoming a knight to reach this point to fight for their kingdom. Her heart echoing in a faster beat as the king spoke only to skip a few as the face of Merlin loomed from the shadows. The hands around her neck, she could feel them again slowly pulling closer and tighter, no her mind wanted to scream as they began walking back. Back to the room where they had murdered him, torn him apart like a dog, a scream from within wanted to escape but the hands where too tight. Instead she followed only to see the gate sitting there, a figure of red that somewhere she should have remembered. Someone she had served should have served, but the thought fades away as the hands tighten more. It felt as if her feet where in water, as it grew higher and higher around beckoning to drown her as she would continue to sink further and further down as the mirror shatters and the butterflies escape.

The Great Knights stepped forward her eyes following her own leader, Wrath as her mind tried to remember his name again, the gate shifting as they touched it. Then nothing, nothing as a feeling of dread crept closer in as if it had been lurking deep within the shadows. The look of shock on the Great King face, the feeling of laughter bubbling in Merlin as the staff hit the ground and the sounds of chains falling breaking into a million pieces. The hands where so tight she couldn’t breath anymore, it was happening again it would be more betrayal, no it was another act of betrayal as pain now spread to her entire body. It felt like all the air had been pulled out of her body, the hands still gripping firmly around her neck as her body crumpled to the ground as the feeling of black crystals growing out of her. The shadow from her weapon shifting moving as it wrapped around arm, up to her shoulder and spreading, driving the feeling of hunger and confusion. No her mind kept screaming, no, no, as the sound of the last chain fell to the ground. Her body slowly getting to its feet, stumbling forward as the weapon is raised high above. Run, she wanted to scream it out run, do not fall here as the sound of metal clashing against one another.

And for a moment the hands let go, she could breath, she could feel the weapon wrapped around her fingers as hers again. The hands returned, memories, shadows all of it twisting around in her mind she couldn’t remember. What path she had taken, did she really want to protect, was it a lie, was she was a shadow; a twisted form of Merlin’s little game. Agony as the feeling of the hands growing around her neck grew tighter, as everything started to fade away. Soon it was all white, nothing was there but two doors.

He wanted to scream, scream even louder than the noise of metal tearing flesh as she watched in horror. His body was heavy it had moved on its own with little thought of his mind screaming to run to stop anything to keep him from what he was about to do. But there was nothing he could do, his sword plunged into Lancelot and soon there was nothing left of him but blood as he stared in wonder at Merlin. Everything in his world had gone black after that, he wanted to sink, forget it all pretend that everything had happened hadn’t, disappear somewhere far far away. A knight, no this was nothing what Matt had expected. Nothing had turned out to what it was suppose to, all of the betrayal, the deceit everything was falling apart and he felt as if there was nothing he could do anymore.

“Wake up.” A voice rang out, his body still stiff and heavy as it tried to ignore the sound. No, he wanted to stay there, cold alone.

“Wake up.” This time his eyes flew open; the feeling of cold stone was hard against his body as the feeling of movement returned to his fingers. Warmth seeped though his body as he got to his feet, his blue eyes staring at the figure before as if unsure of what he saw was real truth. So far nothing had been want it seemed and there was some doubt somewhere lingering him that the man before him was the Great King like a shadow cling to his heart. Another part of him filed with hope, of course it was the Great King had returned, everything would be restored to right and they would win.

Surely if he was there the knights would win, this would be over and Camelot would be returned to what it once was.

Gazing up he looked at the sky, the figures of shadows lunging at one another, some figures more familiar to him more so than others such as a dragon or a seelie. Others where still too shadowy for him to even tell but a feeling a dread still hung over him, heavier than before. War, the last attack the king spoke and Matt wondered if they would be able to defeat them, all of them or simple be crushed under all of their weight. His hand moved to his hilt as his attention turned back to the Great King, his lips speaking a name that turned Matt’s feet to lead.

Merlin appeared like a haunting shadow behind the king a wretched grin lingering across the betrayer’s face. Hatred rose as his lungs started to turn to stone, the words freezing in his mind as he wanted to yell out. Even his fingers disobeyed him, refusing to wrap themselves around his hilt as they all started to move forward. To the room where they had slain him, as Matt closed his eyes not wishing to see the blood again, he couldn’t bear to think about what they had done. The look of betrayal still as he had stared at them still rung in Matt’s mind as he opened them.

Nothing was there except the mirror; a figure something in red was trapped there but no sooner as the name came to mind it was gone again. The mirror shattering into pieces as somewhat familiar butterflies made their escape leaving behind nothing more than a gate. The Great Knights all stepped forward each of them laying their hands on the gate as the Great King seemed disturbed, still unsure of his choice in the matter. It shifted, but then nothing happened, or at least what was needed to happen didn’t. Instead a flash of confusion, anger maybe flickered on the Great King’s face as he turned to Merlin.

The staff was raised high before hitting the ground, the sound of chains falling the ground as the feeling of some great joke was finally revealed. All this time, being used, they were being used, the Great King. A feeling of despair ate away at Matt as his body started to grow heavy and soon pain erupted. Starting at his lungs if moved like wildfire, he couldn’t breath as his limbs started to give way crashing him to the floor. His head slowly stopped beating, as everything for a moment seemed to stand still.

It moved, the shadows around his sword moved and slowly began to grow as body picked itself up off the ground again. Screaming as the feeling of confusion and hunger seemed to echo heavier and heavier into his mind. Stiff he moved forward his sword held out, rising high and then striking against the metal of the Great King’s. For one blissful moment he could breath, he was in control and Matt felt guilt clutch his soul as he stared at the Great King.

Then the hunger returned only for a moment as his entire world turned white, two doors calling forth.

Johan felt himself responding to the command, felt the words break through the barrier of cold and darkness surrounding him. Consciousness and warmth returned, and with it, memories.

Oh, Light. What had he done to Lancelot?

At first, he didn't comprehend who it was who stood before them. Guilt and grief fixed Johan's eyes to the blade of Tempest, red with blood and gore. It couldn't have possibly been his hand that had driven his weapon into the once Great Knight, he remembered screaming at his hand to stop, to freeze his muscles in place. The utter defeat on Lancelot's face at the end... Johan felt his gorge rise, and wrenched his gaze away from the blade and the memories it brought. Instead, he looked to his surroundings. The Throne Room once more, in shambles. Like a magnet, his eyes were led to the one figure whose perfection stood out in such sharp contrast to the destruction around him. He felt his breath catch. The Great King. Alive! How?

Questions flooded Johan's mind, but his throat refused to give voice to them. He was left to simply drink in the sight of his liege, an unexpected but sorely needed blessing after the nightmare they'd endured. An echo of the grief he felt emanated from the sheathed weapon at the King's side. Almost as if the great sword understood and shared Johan's sadness, shared the King's sadness.

Following the King's gaze, Johan stared at the warring shadows without comprehension until he witnessed one monster viciously attack another. Why were they fighting amongst themselves?

The King's voice immediately grabbed his attention, and Johan felt a sense of determination fall over him. A mantle of sanity and purpose granted by the Great King. It was almost immediately shattered when Johan saw Merlin waiting behind the King. He wanted to call out, to warn the King, but his traitor throat wouldn't let him. Around him, the others were similarly bound. He and they could only follow mutely, as his feet bore him back into that room.

Except, where he expected blood, there was only a mirror, and within the mirror an almost familiar face. Shocked by the lack of blood, Johan could only stare uncomprehending of the significance of the broken red crown on the figure's head. The spark of familiarity upon first seeing it faded, and Johan turned his attention back to the greatest threat in the room. Merlin.

He could only stand as mute witness to the breaking of the mirror, trying to will the King to notice the treacherous expression on Merlin's face. But his liege did not. Instead, the gate was freed, and the new Great Knights stepped forward to unlock the seals that appeared. And finally, finally the Great King realized Merlin's deceit. Too late. Far too late.

Tempest's chains broke, and Johan found he couldn't remove his hands from its hilt. Agony coursed through him, tumbling him to the floor. He couldn't breathe! He couldn't feel his heart! His pain and confusion mingled with the growing awareness of his weapon's own agony and hunger. Shadows unfurled themselves like wings from Tempest and wound up Johan's arms, around his torso, down to his legs, binding him. Like a marionette, the shadows pulled his limbs about, slowly learning co-ordination as Tempest drew his body upright. Every movement seemed to sink the shadows further into his flesh, filling Johan with darkness. He watched, helpless, as Tempest took a threatening step towards the King. But it didn't attack. Not yet. The chains on the King's weapon were breaking. Merlin was speaking, but Johan could only watch the links as they clattered one by one to the ground. Finally, the lock fell...

Nothing. In that moment, the Great King attacked. Merlin called out to the other weapons, and Tempest lunged forward, sweeping towards The Great King! Every fibre of Johan's being screamed not again! And just like that, he was back in control! Those were his hands upon Tempest, he was a Knight sworn to protect his King!

Just as quickly, the darkness invaded again, struggling for the use of Johan's body again. The freedom to move, to act.

No! He was a Knight! No! A shadow!

The struggle continued inside him until neither side held any meaning. Memory fled from his/its grasp. He/it wasn't anything anymore. Before him/it there were two doors, and he/it was drawn to both. To which did he/it belong?

Everything happens so slowly. He's vaguely aware that his bleeding body is crawling forward, but he can't quite remember. It's like he's trying to wrap his fingers around something but it keeps slipping from his grasp.

Wake up.

He watches sunlight stream through a window and he wants five more minutes of sleep. But his servant is calling and-

Wake up.

Not his castle. The floor. He remembers blood and the smell of iron in the air. Swords, swinging at Lancelot-

His head was rocking with everything that had happened, but he knew he needed to continue. Despite all that had happened to him, there needed to be merit in the fact that Lock stood up and continued. He watched the king and Merlin engage in a conversation he couldn't understand. He fought the darkness, the hunger, fear, the aching desire to quit and he stood up.

There were two doors now.