Disclaimer: So sorrry I took so long! I really didn't mean to, I've had the craziest summer, my cousin is getting married, my friend is getting a new niece, argh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!!!!!!!!!

Jaelithe drew himself up to his full, if not very impressive, height. "Very well," he said to Jareth. "I doubt you can remember who you are that long. And the next time Jason surfaces, I doubt you'll return. Then I can finish you off properly, without all of this counter spell nonsense. Are you ready?"

Jareth was not ready, but he was not going to admit something like that either. He drew into a defensive stance, placing himself between his friends and his adversary. Jaelithe regained his sarcastic smile and matched him. The two faced each other for a few seconds, then the nightmare lord leaped!

Sarah's eyes were near blinded when the titans clashed. Brilliant green lightening rammed into the neon blue of the shield. Bolts of fire raged into glistening daggers of ice. Arrows and javelins of light ripped through the air all around them. "This is insane!" Sarah yelled as she ran to a safer location. "One of them will have to die for the battle to end!"

"Jareth will lose," Gabriel said.

Sarah stared at him, her mouth a pursed line across her face, parallel to her knitted brows. Gabriel hastened to explain. "In his already weakened state, he seems completely unable to rightly defend himself against an attack as forceful as Jaelithe's. There's no way he can win against the odds."

Sarah glared at him, at a loss for words in her fury. "You wait," she shouted. "He'll win. He has to!"

Jareth couldn't hear what Sarah said. He was, after all, in the midst of battle. He desperately wished that he could call upon his powers in the Labyrinth. That thought led him to think that he must, at all costs, win this battle and protect his realm. And, he realized, protect Sarah.

He could see her face in his mind's eye, calling for him to help her. He felt a surge of emotion course through him, his heart starting to beat faster. He could feel himself slipping away, his control over his body fading...

No! he cried silently as he slipped out of consciousness.

Jason's eyes widened as the black bolt of energy hit him squarely in the chest. He convulsed violently as he was thrown backward, skidding over the asphalt and hearing a sickening crack as his arm snapped in half. He heard somebody scream as he looked up to see Jaelithe coming toward him, a malicious sneer on his face.

"Amazing," he said. "How delightfully unpredictable your memory is." He was standing right before Jason now, a faint green glow in his left hand. There was a cut on his forehead, and blood covered his left eye, but his right glittered with triumph.

"As I said before," Jaelithe continued. "You are so obse-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the wind was knocked out of him as he collapsed with a lapful of Sarah. The girl was kicking, clawing, biting, trying to do as much damage as she could. The unexpected attack caused Jaelithe to stay pinned for several minutes while he was pounded by Sarah's fear, anger, and desperation.

Eventually, though, he got his bearings and managed to shove her off and pin her down. No sooner had he done this when he was attacked from behind by none other than Gabriel. Thoroughly annoyed now, he threw the boy from him and angrily snarled out a shield spell. He looked up to see that Gabriel, who had been charging him again, was halfway trapped inside the shield, while the rest of him was still outside.

This time, the nightmare lord wasted no time with arrogant speeches and triumphant sneers. He knew that this particular shield would serve as an excellent conductor for his needs. Focusing his energy, he sent an experimental shock wave through the shield. Satisfied by his prisoner's screech of surprise and pain, he continued to feed violent energy between them, gleefully reveling in each scream.

Sarah didn't know what to do. Jason had blacked out, and losing a serious amount of blood. Gabriel was trapped, seemingly screaming his head off from inside the shield, and there was no way for her to get him out. She wished she could do something, anything, rather than stand there, useless between them as she was now.

Suddenly, it seemed as though her mind was being opened, as one opens a paperback novel. "Sarah!" Jareth's voice echoed through her brain. "Sarah! You have to listen to me!"

"I hear you!" she screamed, trying to cling to his already fading voice.

"Sarah, this is a nightmare lord. You know that when you are asleep, if you realize it is a nightmare, you can manipulate that nightmare. You have to realize that this isn't real!"

Sarah's eyes widened. "What?!" she shrieked.

"None of this is real! I'm not lying there unconscious in a human body, I'm fine, I'm here in the Labyrinth! Jaelithe has been tricking you all this time with a nightmare! None of it is real!"

She could feel him fading, feel the novel close. "Wait, Jareth!" she cried.

"None of this is real."

Sarah looked frantically around her. There was Jason, unconscious, probably dying, and there was Jaelithe, gleefully torturing Gabriel, who was trapped in that hellish conductor. It's not real! She screamed it to herself. Oh, God! It's not real!

She blotted all of the pictures out of her mind, all of her thoughts out of her mind, all of her fear out of her mind. "It's not real!" she screamed. "It's...not...REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!"

* * * * *

Jareth looked up. "She's awake," he said simply.

Jaelithe sighed. "Yes, she is," he said. "You shouldn't have interfered like that. I thought we'd just finished making rules for this game."

Jareth took the crystal sphere and twirled it idly in his palm. "You've broken rules yourself, you know," he said. "Besides, I've grown quite fond of young Sarah. She is a remarkable young woman, you know."

Jaelithe snatched the crystal out of his hand. "Yes, I know!" he said. "You're so soft, Jareth! Going out and loving people all the time!" He stood up and stomped over to the door. "I'm not giving her any nightmares again. If you love her so much, you can give her good dreams every night for all I care!"

Jareth stood. "Are you so jealous of me because you could never learn to love?" he asked bluntly. Jaelithe paused in mid-step and rotated to face him.

"You know," he said icily. "That I haven't the heart." He threw the crystal at Jareth angrily. "Love is just a lie!"

He turned and stormed out, leaving the dream lord alone with his thoughts. Jareth turned back to the sphere and saw the image of Sarah, blinking the sleep from her eyes as the sun played games on her hair.

"Perhaps," he said softly. "But for me-and Sarah-it is all too real."