Jalil frowned, leaning on the golden throne where Amun sat, staring out through his own eyes but without any ability to control his own actions. It was a strange experience, to watch himself move and act, but as though disembodied, without the physical sensations associated with the stiff wind surrounding him, the tingling in his fingers from the magical energy. He had been in this position before, last year when he had first stumbled across the mask that had contained Amun's consciousness. But on that occasion, he had been trapped in the golden mindscape with no way of connecting with the outside world apart from the snatches and glimpses that Amun had shown him. This time, at least, he could see what was happening around them.

Even if he still couldn't influence his own body's actions.

Helplessly, Jalil watched himself continue to float down the street, buoyed up by a column of air that stripped the leaves from the trees below him, his head cresting above the apartment buildings on either side of the street. In the brilliant glow of his face, the light pouring from his eyes, he could see everything – cars, buildings, plants, even the people standing along the street in the shadows. Below him, cars pulled over to the side of the road, the drivers leaning out of the window and craning their necks to watch him pass. Civilians gawked, staring up at him in bewilderment. A little boy, holding onto his mother's hand, pointed eagerly up at him, jumping up and down.

Jalil swallowed anxiously, glancing at Amun out of the corner of his eye. Amun leaned forward, his elbows on the throne's arm rests, fingers steepled, a look of intense concentration on his face. How would he respond to the people below them? He had never in the past shown an interest in hurting people… but he had never in the past shown much concern for their lives, either. Surreptitiously, Jalil placed a hand on Amun's shoulder.

The golden mindscape around Jalil suddenly vanished, to be replaced by a familiar scene of himself, sitting in a temple-palace gilded in gold, perched on a gold-inlayed throne eerily reminiscent of the one Amun had created in the mindscape. Before him knelt a man in tattered clothes, his hands outstretched in a plea.

"P–please, my lord," the man whispered. "I–I need food."

Jalil felt his lips curl into a sneer, and he leaned forward. A familiar voice murmured, "Many people have needs in this time. What makes your need any different than theirs?"

"I–I wish only to live," came the reply. "To provide for my family in our time of need."

A scoffing answer came back. "A simple desire for a simple man. Simplicity is below the purview of the great. Take this simpleton away."

Two guards stepped forward and grabbed the man by the arms, hauling him up to his feet. The man's eyes widened in shock and terror, and he struggled against them, but only for a moment. One of the guards cuffed him across the face, and he went limp. As the guards dragged him out of the audience chamber, he shook his head, blinked alertness back into his eyes, and cried out. The guard lifted his hand to strike him again, but Jalil felt his hand rise in a gesture of peace.

"What have you to say for yourself?"

The man glared up at Jalil with hatred in his eyes. "Your cruelty will be remembered," he shouted. "We will not forget this day!"

Jalil felt his lip curl. A sensation of triumph. A dismissive wave. "Begone with him."

Pulling his hand away from Amun, Jalil blinked, shaking his head in shock at the memory. He stared down at Amun, his eyebrows furrowed, watching him for any reaction. Amun sat in the same position, staring ahead, out through the view from Jalil's eyes, a pensive expression on his face. Letting out a nonexistent breath, Jalil folded his arms.

The column of air holding Amun-Vatar in the air passed above a vehicle, which almost lifted up off the ground, only remaining on the street went Amun-Vatar moved away from it. A cloud of sticks and twigs, peeled off of a tree he had passed, swirled around in a complicated pattern, sending the twigs flying in all directions, only missing the onlookers by a couple meters at most. Jalil held his breath as Amun-Vatar moved on and a branch fell to the ground just in front of the small boy, who gasped and jumped backward, staring at it with enormous eyes.

"These people trust us," Jalil whispered, his stomach clenching. Would they still trust him if they knew that Amun was in charge? Could he still trust himself, now that Amun was in charge?

Amun scoffed. "They should not trust us," he informed Jalil. "They should fear us, knowing what we are capable of doing to them with the… snap of a finger." He held up his hand, two fingers pressed together, and eyed Jalil in a challenge.

Jalil clenched his jaw, watching Amun helplessly. While Amun was loose, while Amun was in control of his actions, there was nothing that Jalil could do to stop him, if he chose to unleash his power on the people below them. "Is fear really the most powerful tool in your arsenal?" Jalil demanded, frowning.

"Certainly not the only one…" Amum lifted his hands, ascending higher into the air, and the wind column stripped the bark from three nearby trees, pulling a car's rear wheels off the ground for a moment. "But you must admit, it is an effective one." He gestured down toward the onlookers. "Do you see all those people down below us? That is how they understand their gods: through fear. Fear, and awe."

The crowd along the street below had grown as Amun-Vatar continued through the city, hardly turning his head, not acknowledging their presence. Amun lowered his hand to grip the throne, a look of intense concentration on his face. Relaxing slightly, Jalil turned his attention toward the chaos a few blocks away from them. Movement in the sky caught his eye to the east; a winged figure soared up into the sky for a moment before dropping back down again, close to a large plume of smoke that obscured the faint stars in that direction. In the distance around him in all directions, he could see more isolated pockets of fire and smoke rising into the air. Most of them appeared far away, but not all: only a couple blocks north of him, a new department store that had only been rebuilt and reopened two weeks earlier had had its front windows smashed and some of the merchandise stolen. Flames licked the interior walls around the front display area, charring the large placard that had been on the front window and was now broken on the floor advertising "Agreste Fashion proudly presents, the Heroes of Tarascon!"

Amun-Vatar paused in front of the department store, turning the slightest bit as the wind from his air column fanned the flames. At once the placard ignited, the flames climbing higher to catch the ceiling. Alarms and sirens sounded all around the city, but Jalil couldn't see any emergency vehicles coming in their direction. Jalil tensed. What would happen if this fire spread?

Next to Jalil, Amun hummed, stroking his chin. "That will not do," he mused, waving his hand. Outside, Amun-Vatar's open hand lifted and clenched tightly shut. A column of air built around the store, pulling the flames away from the building in a rush. The flames flared higher momentarily, joining into the towering column of air, only to flicker out at the source as the air was pulled away and created a vacuum within. After a moment, the fire died down to embers inside the building before finally snuffing out. At that, the wind died down.

Jalil cocked his head to one side. "Why would you do that?"

Amun raised an eyebrow. "It is such a waste, do you not agree?"

Mutely, Jalil nodded.

A whine from behind them drew Jalil's attention, just as something shot past Amun-Vatar's head. Jalil stared in shock as the object caught the glow from a fire two blocks to their right and resolved into the familiar shape of Mecha-Man. Without slowing down, Mecha-Man turned sharply toward the burning building and sent a sonic pulse at the rooftop door, blowing it off its hinges. Mecha-Man landed on the roof, and Jalil lost sight of him as he stormed inside. To the left, a creaking, groaning sound came from one of the newly-built apartment buildings.

"Now what do we have here?" Amun asked softly as Amun-Vatar turned in that direction. Below them, Jalil could just make out a couple of smaller shapes running around the front of the darkened building. Slowly, Amun-Vatar descended until he hovered only a couple meters above the ground, eyeing them impassively.

"You ever get the feeling the boss doesn't know what he's doing?" a vaguely-familiar voice muttered. "He had us help build this building, and now we're taking it down?"

Another voice let out a grunt and a muffled curse. "Does it matter? We do what he tells us, we get paid, end of story."

"Whatever," the first voice growled. "Just get it over with already! I need to get home!"

"In a minute!" the other voice retorted sharply. "This isn't exactly as easy as you would think. Hit the wrong spot, and it comes down on us! And then you'd never get home…"

Amun-Vatar silently glided to one side, orbiting around the building in the direction of the voices. Around the north side of the building, the two figures came into focus, outlined in the golden glow of Amun-Vatar's eyes: one was obviously the Bearator, but the other was one Jalil couldn't remember seeing–

"Really?" Amun sneered, arching an eyebrow at Jalil. "You do not remember that fool the Loader? The one who works for the two-bit drug lord in the Lynchpin's employ?"

Jalil blinked. "And you do?"

"Obviously. When you were my only link to the outside world, I had no choice."

"Just get it over with already!" the Bearator growled, looking in either direction nervously. "We're wasting time here."

"You are wasting far more than mere time," Amun-Vatar intoned, his voice strangely ethereal. "You waste your life on such frivolous, trivial, and ultimately meaningless displays. And even more significantly, you waste my patience."

"The hell?" The Bearator twisted his neck to face him, and his eyes widened in shock only to immediately narrow into thin slits as his hands found the hand claws on his belt. "You want to tussle, Goldy?" he snarled, springing into the air and hurtling himself straight at Amun-Vatar. The Loader hit a button on his exo-suit, and a massive energy cannon rose up from behind his back and slammed down onto his shoulder, pointing at Amun-Vatar.

Jalil's eyes widened nervously, and he forced all his effort into moving his hand, into regaining some sort of control over his own actions. The Bearator was three meters away! Two! One! The hand claws glinted in the ambient light, slashing down toward Amun-Vatar's chest.

With a wave, Amun-Vatar sent a slap of wind straight at the Bearator, launching him straight backward, through one corner of the building he and the Loader had been standing beside. The Bearator rocketed away, rising higher into the air as he flew, yelling in a mix of anger and fear. He swung his hand claws wildly, tumbling around uncontrolled and bouncing off of rooftops. With a shout, the Loader fired a wide energy beam at Amun-Vatar, who held out one hand and caught the energy in one hand. Manipulating his fingers, he focused it back around into an impossible geometric shape that spread out and turned around on itself to form a massive cage, dwarfing the Loader. Looking in either direction nervously, the Loader slowly started to back away, and Amun-Vatar turned his hand over, enclosing him within the light construct. Instantly it began to shrink in size around him. He pushed against the golden bars as they constricted, but they would not budge. Suddenly, with a rending of metal, the Loader's exo-suit began to compact, the Loader still trapped inside. He screamed in terror and pain, only for the scream to abruptly stop.

Sitting in his golden throne, Amun grinned, his eyes flashing. "To have this power again!"

Jalil eyed him carefully. "And what do you want to do with this power?"

Amun turned to face him and raised an eyebrow. "I would have thought that was obvious. I shall, once more, rule this world and bend it to my will!"