Hey, guys. Sorry if I've made any of you impatient - my schedule's gotten extremely busy as of late. Tonight, I'm going to post two chapters just so that I can get more of this thing off my chest before the next school year starts.

Besides, this one's kind of short, anyway.

Chapter 27 - Dreamscape, Joshua Edition

Joshua was pacing around in a room themed with shades of blue, muttering to himself, when a young man stepped into the room by slamming the door open.

The hazel-eyed teen stopped short and turned his gaze towards the figure. "Don't you ever knock?"

"You know I've stopped bothering to because we're the only ones here," the young man replied, stepping into Joshua's bedroom. Crystal blue eyes scanned over a poster of a kid in blue armor on the wall before locking with Joshua's hazel, green speckled orbs. "I've found a way to isolate your communications signal, but it may take time."

"Time we probably don't have, Blitzen," Joshua grumbled in reply. He absently adjusted his dark blue shirt, eyeing the neon blue jacket that Blitzen was wearing over a dusty blue shirt. "Who knows how much we have before Charon gets that portal generator working and attracts her like you've been saying it will."

"Your visions haven't lied yet," Blitzen replied, spreading his arms out. Joshua caught sight of white scars working their way up the man's left arm, but they were gone in a moment when Blitzen put his hands in his pockets. "Do you want me to show you how to isolate the signal to block out eavesdroppers or not?"

Joshua frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. As soon as he had moved, their surroundings instantly started to blur and morph into something else.

Gray walls came up around the two, and rows of bunkbeds rose up from the floor. Two figures started walking between the beds, muttering to each other. As they got close to Joshua and Blitzen, their conversation was clearly heard:

"Those kids are doing a good job at keeping their identities and plans on the down low," one of the figures remarked. "I have no idea how smart those two are, but -"

"The walls have ears," the other figure growled in a gruff voice that matched his beard. "It seems they know it as much as we do. Now, listen." He turned in front of the first figure and grabbed him by his black and white-striped shirt collar. "Continue to monitor their communications. If anything comes up, move to contact one of them as soon as possible - be it either this Mist...or Boggart."

Their surroundings shifted again, and Joshua and Blitzen stood again in Joshua's bedroom.

Blitzen blinked, looking around at the reset room. "Okay. I'll...take that as a no."

Joshua gave a nod and let his arms drop to his sides. "Yeah. I'm getting the feeling that I should be getting contact from them soon."

"And the goons that have been wandering around? What's to say that they aren't listening in, either?" Blitzen took a few steps forward and looked down at Joshua. "I'm not going to let you suffer from what I have if they find out what you can do."

Joshua frowned, then looked over at Blitzen's left wrist, which was still in his jean pocket. "What do you mean? You're just a figment of my imagination."

Blitzen's eyes narrowed slightly, and he turned and face the bedroom door. "There's more to me than you know, Joshua." Without another word, he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

For the umpteenth time, Joshua wondered what the face-like symbol on Blitzen's back meant.

See what I meant by short?