Well, well, well. This was an interesting turn of events. The Ender, the proud commander of the conquerors of world whatsit, brought low by the General and his new magical powers. I hadn't expected that. She'll be furious when she wakes up, doubtful too. Good thing our glorious leader had been there to prevent the General from doing something more to her. As much as I would have liked the drama that would have caused, we still have a job to do.

I was standing in the village square, invisible to all. Except to the Entity of course, quite difficult to hide from someone within their own domain. The three manifestations had dwindled back to one, however now I realized that this was no mere manifestation, this was the Entity in person. Interesting.

It looked straight at me. "Freak."

That sure was my name.

I looked over to where some prisoners were bound to a wooden platform in the middle of the square, though I didn't pay much mind to them yet, I'd be doing that later. Instead I looked at the other two figures, the Ender and the scientist, what was her name again? Both of them were out cold. I almost caught myself worrying about the scientist since she was an integral part of the aforementioned job, nobody else knew all the details about the machine and how it worked and if we were to lose her that'd be bad. The machine itself didn't really interest me, its effect was a different story. That was also the reason why I hadn't exactly followed a certain order because honestly, I had better things to do. Collecting crystals wasn't among my favorite activities but it sure beat following that scaled and allegedly ancient creature from the negotiations.

I then looked back to the Entity. "Need something?"

"Int-errogate the captives. Then... follow."

I was all over the first part. I immediately showed myself to the leftmost prisoner, then slowly walked up. The captive was a middle-aged overweight man, had the look of a tavern keeper. Didn't have to guess what he got arrested for. I sighed. This was too easy, he was already quivering in his boots just from seeing me. Don't get me wrong, fear is fear for nourishment purposes but can you blame a phantom for wanting a challenge every now and again?

"Leave me alone!" he screamed, which in turn unsettled the other captives.

I briefly looked into the eyes of the fat man, seeing his deepest fears. I was disappointed. Heights? Boring. Thunder? Boring. Spiders? Again? What was it with humans and their damn fear of spiders?

I decided not to bother with him, even if I did interrogate him, what would he say? That he did his job and accidentally housed escapees? Anyways, moving on. I revealed myself to the next captive, an older man whose face seemed vaguely familiar. This one was more promising.

As soon as I looked into his eyes I knew why he looked familiar, this was a lucky coincidence. He was one of my favorites back in the Tower's prison. Hard shell, hard interior, tiny but very soft core. Classic raised-by-wolves type of guy, no family, no friends. Only thing he ever did was fight, which is also what had brought him into our captivity, if only he'd given up those crystals willingly... This was the challenge I was looking for.

"Hello again." I casually said.

He frowned. "You."

"Yes me, see I'm in a bit of a hurry. Mind telling me where exactly the other escapees are? Or where they went?"

I didn't give him time to respond, instead conjuring up an image in his mind. It was a very particular image, one that I had held back for an occasion like this. It was an image of a pond in a foggy but quiet forest clearing, the man's inner self placed on the edge of it. This seemed to confuse him, he clearly had been expecting something much worse… but I was not done yet.

He cautiously approached the pond. His mirror image was clearly visible on the surface. A few moments later the water became murky and an arm reached out. It was the man's own arm, only that it belonged to another version of himself. The mirror image slowly rose out of the pond, the man wasted no time attacking this mockery of him. His first punch hit the copy in the stomach but instead of soft flesh the man felt rough tree bark against his knuckles. He looked up.

The copy had changed, its skin covered by bark and mushrooms, its fingers resembling pointy thorns.

A fully-blown fight broke out between the man and the other version of him. The man fought with discipline and technique, the plant abomination with feral rage. The fight was about evenly matched, until the man landed a punch to the plant's head. This was when my trap was sprung.

The instant the punch connected the man's perspective switched, he was no longer in his own body, he was now in the plant. He felt the rage and the pain and immediately went on the counter-offensive. With him in control of the plant the fight was finished quickly, his human self torn apart within a few minutes. Of course, this was exactly where I wanted him, now that the fight was over he fully realized what had happened and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. All that solitary training and self-control he was so proud of, effectively broken down by a simple switch of perspective.

However before he had any opportunity to think, the dead body of his human self twitched, disembodied parts being pulling themselves back together. Metallic crystals grew out of the wounds, tearing off more and more flesh as they increased in size. The resulting creature got up and charged at the plant. As they made contact the man's perspective switched again, this time to the revived crystal-studded body. Another fight broke out, again with the creature the man controlled clearly having the upper hand, the metal easily piercing the bark.

Just when the man thought he had defeated the plant, it changed again. Growing dramatically in size and gaining armor plating that looked like an insect's shell. The plant's head morphed to form powerful mandibles, its hands became spear-like and a pair of wings sprouted on its back. Once again, the man's perspective switched. By now he must have recognized the pattern. Again he attacked his former body, crushing it using sheer force and evading its attacks with the superior mobility the wings provided.

Once again the defeated body changed, the crystals grew again, completely consuming the skeleton underneath. The metal sharpened into countless blades that themselves seemed to be made up of ever-smaller blades. When the man's perspective switched this time he didn't attack at first, as if conflicted. Then, instead of going after the insect, he turned his bladed hands against himself, each stab and slash shattering the blades into smaller pieces with no end in sight as the man's movements became more and more desperate.

This was a special kind of fear that he felt, not of something else but of himself and what he had become, it was not a fear one could run away from. Even if the illusion was only just that, it had shown him a side of himself he had desperately tried to suppress his entire life. Now that I thought of it, that fear seemed to be more common the more capable an individual was.

The illusion faded and the man was reduced to a quivering wreck.

I asked: "So, where are they?"

It hadn't been much but they had at least known some things. I relayed these to one of the squadron leaders who seemed to be the Ender's second-in-command. Maybe it wasn't but it would loop it's way around the command structure eventually. A few minutes later the town square had increased in population again.

I didn't have time for more interrogations, even if they would have been quite fun. The Entity wanted me to follow it and that's what I did. It slowly walked through the streets, never looking anywhere but forward.

I decided that walking in silence was boring, so I asked it a question. "So, why'd you come in person?"

It didn't respond for a few seconds, then it said. "Urgent-matter. Anomaly."

Yeah, we've had quite a few of those recently. A bit too many to not be suspicious so I guess it makes sense to investigate personally. But why does it want me along?

I decided not to question the Entity further, even for someone like me that could lead to bad things. It couldn't possess me, true, but it could do other things.

We turned a few more corners, then we reached our destination. Our destination was… nothing. Less maybe, this wasn't regular nothing because regular nothing at least had air in it. This was nothing you could see, at least somewhat. As a phantom I had senses superior to humans when it came to weird sights but this was weirder than I was used to. It was like someone had pried open a gap in my field of vision and then left.

"This it?" I asked.

The Entity simply replied: "Yes."

"Aaand what is it?"

What the Entity said now was something I didn't expect: "Dimen-sional scar, painful."

The Entity could feel pain? That was surprising but also highly intriguing. Perhaps even useful. The supposed pain certainly explained why it was so uncommunicative.

It walked up to the scar and put its hands to either side, then made a motion as if it was pushing something closed. It remained in this posture for a few minutes, as it did the scar got progressively smaller until it disappeared completely.

The Entity spoke again. "What... ever did this is-dangerous but not a-threat, not now. Too late now."

As it turned to leave I caught a brief glimpse through the visor of its bronze helmet. I flinched. I sensed something I had never sensed before. A fear so deep and overwhelming that I first couldn't process what it was. Along with the fear came an image, it was a room plated with obsidian and bronze, in it was a throne, clearly the Entity's chambers. However on top of the throne was something I hadn't ever noticed when I was there, a tiny distortion that resembled the scar the Entity had just closed.

It took a few moments before the realization hit me. I had been under the impression that the Entity simply did not feel fear, which was why I decided to join it. I had to get on the good side of something that I had absolutely no angle on. So far that had definitely been true, the Entity had never before felt fear, ever. Until now. This was extraordinarily interesting.