Chapter 5: Rowen the Chef

"Before we begin, I must warn you that the actual transformation will be extremely painful and you might black out. However I can assure you that this is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about." Morpheus said calmly as he slowly walked around Cye, carefully looking him over.

"Have you ever done this before?"

"Only once, on a dog."

"Thanks," Cye replied sarcastically, "that makes me feel a lot better."

"Enough talk, it is time to begin." Morpheus said as he came to a stop behind Cye. "ANIMAGUS AUDITUS LAGAMORPHUS CONFORM!!!"

For a moment nothing seemed to happen and Cye began to walk away, when suddenly a sharp pain stabbed at his head and his heart began to race. Immediately, Cye grabbed his head with his hands to try to quell the pain as the world began swimming dizzily around him. The pain shot through his chest and he fell to his hands and knees, panting desperately for breath. That's when he saw reddish orange fur spreading over his arms and his fingers grew shorter as claws appeared at the ends then disappeared. Then there was a huge explosion inside of him as everything went black and he fell to the ground.

Slowly Kento pulled himself out of bed, stretched, and began putting his clothes on. Cautiously he made his way into the living room and made his way across to the other side where the kitchen waited. Something tickled his nose as he reached the halfway mark in the living room, sniffed curiously, and frowned. Smoke...

"Good morning Kento, Cye wasn't awake yet so I thought I'd go ahead and make breakfast." Rowen said with a smile on his face as he turned around in the kitchen and held up a spatula.

Kento winced. Looks like I'll just have to go hungry this morning

"No you won't Kento. I can assure that after three years of spending our mornings apart, Rowen's cooking has improved...somewhat." Clara said with a small wry smile on her face as she scraped the charred black eggs into the trashcan. "He's the only one I know who can still manage to burn eggs."

"Wait a minute, how'd you know what I was thinking?" Kento asked with wide eyes as Clara began making some more eggs and Rowen sat down at the kitchen table beside him.

"Ever since we got married and started living together, she has developed the ability to read my thoughts and the thoughts of those who are close to her." Rowen said as he casually leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "All Audrey and I can figure is that it means that her powers are developing further than they were when she battled Chaos."

"That would explain why she seems to be calm most of the time."

"Sage you almost startled me." Clara said in an awed voice as she watched the violet-eyed, blonde-haired youth standing across the room behind her.

"Then it would seem that there are some who are able to evade the mind link." Sage said as he crossed the room and leaned in close to Clara's face until their bangs brushed each other.

"Ahem."

Clara turned around blushing a deep shade of crimson as she nervously laughed and ran her fingers through her silky blue hair. "Don't worry you guys," she said as she saw Kento and Rowen eyeing her dubiously, "if I was really in love with Sage it would have begun to manifest itself through my powers."

Rowen and Kento said nothing but seemed to accept this and started eating as Clara served the rest of the food.

However, unbeknownst to them, Clara wasn't the only one with the special psychic link.