Autumn stirred in her sleep, letting out a small groan of discomfort. Lin Chung gently places his cold paw on her forehead, causing the young woman to let out a small sigh of relief.
"How is she?" Jilpa asked as she entered the tent.
"She's developing a fever," Lin Chung said. "I'm worried about her. First Twin Masters possess her and now this…. How much more can she take?"
"I would worry about yourself right now," Jilpa said softly.
"I'm fine," he said. "Autumn's the one who needs the most help right now."
Autumn's demons took many forms. Some were shadowy figures with large yellow eyes, clowns with razor-sharp teeth and red balloons, snakes with multiple heads, humans with deer skulls for heads, and a man with a hatchet who had the words 'red rum' painted on his head who was holding the hand of a large Raggedy Ann doll.
Sonia shot her tongue at one of the snake demons, knocking it back, but before she could retract the red rum guy grabbed it and yanked her towards him and the doll. The doll jumped on her head and started whispering in her ear.
"You'd think with all that weight some would go to your chest."
Sonia grabbed the doll and threw it at and the man, knocking him down.
"What the heck was that?" She asked as she dodged one of the snake-headed demons who kept hissing 'fatty patty' and 'fat pig'.
"These are her demons. Every mean word, bad thought, and doubt that has snaked its way into her mind." Alexandria said and she punched one of the deer demons.
"Isn't there someone who can control them?"
"What do you think Eclipse was for?! It was her job to control them. Why do you think it was so easy for Lady Green to get under her skin like that?"
Sonia let her words sink in as she dodged another punch. If Autumn's mental state was dependent on Eclipse keeping the demons locked away then Autumn would never get better. She'd just be caught in an endless cycle of self-doubt without Eclipse to keep them away. She needed Eclipse.
Once all the demons scattered the two headed down the hall till they came to a large set out double doors.
"What's this place?" Sonia asked.
"The memory core," Alexandria said. "We should be able to go inside and destroy the memories of what Wu Fan did to her and then she'll wake up."
Alexandria opened the door and inside was a pitch-black room was thousands, if not millions of glowing blue spheres. Each of the spheres had a scene moving around it, like Alex riding bikes with her brothers, people singing around a campfire, etc. As they walked further into the hall the memories became more recent and changed from blue to violet.
"Sonia!" Someone called out.
Sonia turned around and saw Tempest running towards them.
"You need to see this," he said.
Tempest guided Sonia and Alexandria to Autumn's memories of what happened at Wu Fan's estate. All the memories were glowing dark red, except for one. It was foggy, like a black and white dream rather than a memory.
"Is that Autumn asleep?" Sonia asked.
"Yeah, keep watching," Tempest said.
As Autumn slept Wu Fan crept up on her and started to pull the covers off of her when a familiar dark shadow appeared between them.
"Get away from her…" the shadow said right before the memory turned to black.
"Is that-"
"Eclipse," Tempest said. "She protected Autumn."
Back in the waking world Autumn whimpered as she tossed and turned in her sleep. Lin Chung and Jilpa did their best to help her and calm her down to no avail.
"They need to hurry up," Jilpa said as she watched Lin Chung's fur turn white. He began shivering more violently as well.
The three gathered up all the memories, but a thought occurred to Sonia: Was this the best solution? Destroying her memories didn't make them any better than the monster that drove her to this state.
"This isn't right," Sonia said. "If we destroy her memories then we're just as bad as Wu Fan!"
"Then what do you propose we do?" Tempest said. "Time's running out. Lin Chung could be a popsicle by now! "
"Hey, April! Come back!" Mighty Ray yelled.
The childish side of Autumn ran up to them carrying a bight blue orb, only to trip and send the orb flying into the pile.
"I told you not to run off!" he said picking up the child.
April sniffled and cried. "I-I j-just wanted to show them A-Autumn's first basket in b-basket ball." She cried as she bawled her eyes out.
As Alexandria and Tempest tried to calm April down Sonia noticed something interesting. When the positive memory came in contact with the negative memory it started to fade without harming either of the memories. Sonia ran and grabbed as many good memories as she could carry and tossed them on the pile. This got the attention of her comrades.
"What are you doing Sonia?" Tempest asked.
"The positive memories cancel out the negative ones." She said as she placed the memory of her and Autumn in the hot spring on top of the memory of Wu Fan force-feeding Autumn, causing it to go dark.
Out of curiosity, Mighty Ray grabbed a memory of him, Autumn and Lin Chung taking down some bear soldiers together and as he placed it by the memory of the wedding it reacted just like his friend said.
"Cool."
The five of them quickly collected as many memories as they could and added them to the pile. Soon all the bad memories began to fade and a sense of calm washed over the five and spread through Autumn's mind. The demons that once ran rampant slowly made their way back into the depths of her mind, because no one can truly destroy their demons, there will always be lingering somewhere in the back of their minds. The attributes felt calm and the wounds left by both Twin Masters and Wu Fan began to heal and fade, but they would never truly heal, and a new attribute was formed.
She was a little on the chubby side but had a smile that could light up the room. She wore her long hair down with a crown of moonflowers on her head. She wore a long bright yellow robe with black boots. Her name: Hope.
Autumn woke up with a gasp and looked around.
"Autumn are you okay-" Lin Chung was cut off by Autumn grabbing the fur on his chest and pulling him into a deep passionate kiss. His heart melted during their kiss as he wrapped his tail around her and pulled her close.
They broke apart just as their friends woke up. Soon Blayze, Snow Leopard Queen, Jumpy, Ram King, and Mr. No-Hands joined them in the tent and spent the next few hours talking to Autumn and assessing her mental and physical state while Sonia filled them in on what happened in Autumn's mind.
"I think it would be best if we paused our search for the prince and headed back to Big Green." Mr. No-Hands said.
"I agree," Lin Chung said with the others nodding in agreement "This has been both emotionally and physically taxing on all of us."
"Then it is agreed."
"We will be going with you as well," Jilpa said speaking on the behalf of the three other members of the warriors ten.
"We'll leave in the morning then." Lin Chung said. "We'll have to make a detour at the Spirit Cave though."
Later that night in Twin Master's cave Lady Green was being chewed out by Twin Masters while Eclipse watched from the shadows. He called Lady Green out on not killing Lin Chung and Autumn when she had the change, going so far as to question her loyalty to him and their cause. In the end, he sent her away with a broken arm and a black eye.
As Lady Green headed back to her campsite she was approached by Eclipse. The shadow was beginning to take on a more human appearance with pale skin and now more almond-shaped eyes and chose to wear a black robe. The only thing that stayed the same was her constantly moving hair. She grabbed the redhead by her shirt.
"If you even think about doing what you did to Autumn and Lin Chung again, I will personally disembowel you." She hissed.
Lady Green pushed her off with her good arm. "What's it to you? Don't you hate them?"
Eclipse narrowed her eyes and sneered before walking off muttering.
The fact was that Eclipse didn't hate Autumn. She was Autumn and Autumn was her, they were two sides of the same coin, but she felt compelled to kill Autumn, just because of the curse Coyote King had placed on them so she didn't have a choice.
Did she?