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Sweet daggers of white hot pain threading molten ribbons through his skull. He welcomed it greedily. It had to be his end. Familiar needles of fire and ice that left him tingling beyond agony...

This was wrong! This was not his death, this was the overwhelming embrace of the millennium eye! How could this be happening? Where was his release? Where was Cecilia!?

Another sharp blast of merciless golden power coursed through his body. A wave that crashed down all around him battering its way into his very soul. An animal scream clawed its way from his lungs. Copper taste bleeding into his mouth and bile burning the back of his throat. He gasped wildly for breath like a drowning man or a newborn child.

For a tiny instant he caught a glimpse of his room through the fiery slashing, his mortal eye opened briefly before his head snapped back and his chest was tortured by violent convulsions. Someone was there holding him, two people...

His limbs trembled and twitched as the pain slowly brushed across his temple and melted down his cheeks and throat with all the tender love of a panther licking meat off a bone. The rivers of energy caressed every nerve and settled under his skin with a soft warm liquid flow as hot as newly spilled blood.

The old terrors rose in him like a cobra flaring its hood. He plunged back into the darkness the sharp suffering had released him from. Images of death, misery, blood, always so much blood! The world was awash in a crimson flood. The eye showed him so much despair. The images shredded their way mercilessly into his mind with claws of light tearing away any and all defenses.

Calmly and with eternal patience he reached down deep, into his heart, into his soul. He could not help but respond to the pain the eye held. It was his nature and he could not deny who he was even if it went against every goal.

He reached for the pure blue light of moonlit lakes and the softness of each sun kissed dawn. He filled his mind with hope and light and beauty, the passion of new possibilities. He did not bother to sooth the hostile angry force of the eye. He met it head on and accepted it showing it everything he was. And it, in turn, accepted him.

His lust for life flowed into the eye and it responded like a joyous puppy. It lapped up his memories and the good of the world hungrily and in return it strengthened him. It was the force of destruction and he held the power of creation, the power lying dormant in all of humanity.

Pegasus wound his calm blue aura around the sullen energy like a pair of wings to shield and comfort its eager longing and pain. The pain turned to pleasure, to a deep smoky warmth that settled around his bones like a thick blanket. There was comfort in every molecule he possessed. The eye was at peace now, he brought it balance, he brought it life.

The eye contained one present goal; to heal its master. It was not a goal he had set it to. He caused the eye to pause in its task.

For a fleeting moment Pegasus really was afraid. It was not the power he feared. Through the ages it had always been a part of him. What he feared now was life and the suffering it brought to those around him. There really was so much pain in the world, and in this life he had actually been the cause of some of it. That thought alone was enough to destroy him. If he kept going, would there ever be a way to make things right? Could he really go on without Cecilia? He could stop the eye from healing him, he could use it to end his life right now...

"Pegasus! Hold on, please! You have to come back to us! You can't give up, Pegasus?" The voice was strong but pleading. It seemed to come from a great distance away. He tried to clear his mind and listen, who was it?

It was Yami, it had to be. Only he was strong enough to set a command for the eye to follow.

"Pegasus? Can you hear me? Can you..."

The shadows suddenly flared in Pegasus mind cutting off the young Pharaohs words. The millennium eye sensed powerful magic nearby, he could feel it hotly beating against his faltering breaths. A portal to the shadow realm was forming close by. He had to warn Yami!

Pegasus tried to fight his way to consciousness, he felt like he was buried under a mountain of debris and he was too weak to shift a single pebble. If his ruined body wouldn't respond at least now his faithful eye would. It redoubled its healing efforts strengthened by his urgent will. He deftly sent his message vaulting into Yamis mind, past all the intricate mental shields and defenses without damaging a single one.

""My Pharaoh ! There's a portal coming, look out!""

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