This chapter is lamentably short, and always has been. Disclaimer is in the first chapter.

Chapter 2

When Cera opened her eyes the first thing she noticed was that her surroundings seemed to shift and change without warning. She felt as if she was stumbling through a dark projection room. There were areas of darkness and then bright flashes of light and color. After a few minutes of this everything became white and then faded to a neutral blue. Wisps of mist curled about her and she heard snatches of voices.

"Cera!"

"Wait, Sincerity! Don't go!"

"You… You… You lied to me! Deception, how could you?"

"Join Talpa? Are you crazy, Despair?"

"No one cares about the real us here in this mortal realm. We're better off in the Dynasty, Destruction."

"That's absurd, Dementia! You can't really believe that!"

"Dark Warlord of Deception, I have a task for you."

"Demoness Quartet, destroy the traitors Dais, Kale, Sekhmet, and Kayura, and capture the Ronin Warriors!"

"Cera… Sincerity…"

"Rainbow Elemental Deception."

"Deception of the Rainbow of Elements."

"Cera of Deception."

"Dark Lady of Deception."

Abruptly the voices stopped. Everything dissolved in a flash of green-white light. Once Cera's eyes readjusted she found herself in a brightly lit forest by a river. Without consciously making the decision to do so, she bent over the water and looked at her reflection. With a yelp she jumped back from what she saw. Regaining her courage she looked over the bank again. The image of a girl with rainbow colored hair and orange eyes looked back at her. The features were vague, and had a transience to them, suggesting that they might be washed away with a ripple. Cera studied the apparition closely. Cool hair, she thought as she gazed at it. It began with black shading to deep violet and then through the rest of the colors until it became a thin band of white in the middle and then repeated the pattern backwards until it ended with black again at the ends. Looking the image in the eyes Cera found they had become blue-green. Just like mine, she thought. As this occurred to her the girl shimmered and was replaced with Cera's own reflection of dark blond hair and turquoise eyes. With one addition. The kanji "sincerity" glowed on her forehead. Her reflection rippled and then became the rainbow girl again. Her eyes were a dark green color now and on her forehead there was a rainbow with the kanji "balance" in the center.

Cera abruptly remembered the names and voices she'd heard and what they had mostly had in common. "Deception," she murmured.

The rainbow girl shook her head sadly before morphing to Cera's image. Sincerity glowed brightly. "Sincerity," she whispered. "I don't understand. Is this a message or some demented side effect of my head injury? Demented… Dementia! Dementia, Despair, Destruction, Deception! What do they mean!"

She became aware suddenly of the wind that had risen with her words. It whipped around her tearing branches off, uprooting trees, and blowing water into her face. The wind increased its furious attack pulling her into the air and spinning her about until everything became a grey spiral around her. The storm rose in intensity until the girl was certain she would be torn apart too. And then it stopped. With a shriek of terror Cera sat bolt upright on the sofa and opened her eyes. Ten confused and surprised faces met her. "Umm… Hi?" she said and grinned weakly.