The next thing Daphne knew, she found herself with Shaggy, in a vast expanse of nothingness.
"So, this is the astral plane, huh?" Shaggy asked, looking around. "It's very, um… empty."
"That's because we're not in anyone's mindscape yet," she reminded him. "Usually, when we sleep, we're in our own mindscapes—but we're trying to find Vincent, so of course it's going to be empty until we get close." She looked around. "Try to concentrate—we have to find out where he is."
She shut her mind's eyes, trying to focus—and she sensed a familiar presence that was clearly in a struggle, just out of view.
"That way!" she exclaimed, glancing at Shaggy as he also said the same thing, pointing in the same direction. "Let's go!"
They took off, Daphne's staff and Shaggy's katana appearing in their hands as they ran. An emerald-green glow was soon visible on the empty horizon.
"Yup, that's him alright!" Shaggy exclaimed. "We've just gotta…"
He trailed off as something squished beneath him as they ran; Daphne looked down and let out a noise of disgust as she realized that a marsh had formed beneath their feet, and the mire was already up to their shins.
"Watch your step—it's probably going to get deeper as we go…" She paused. "Hold on, do you hear that?"
Shaggy blinked.
"Sounds like a large river," he said. "But this isn't Vincent's mindscape yet, so… what is it?"
Daphne stopped in mid-step, staring ahead at an old house that had materialized in the marsh. A tall cliff rose up from behind the house.
"Shaggy… is it just me, or are you getting déjà vu, too?" she asked, quietly.
"Yeah, it feels like we've been here before…"
The door of the house suddenly swung open, and a familiar figure grinned at them from the doorway.
"Zoinks! It's Hyde's swamp house!" Shaggy yelled.
Daphne gasped as she glanced back up at the cliff—and as a bolt of lightning illuminated Dr. Coffin leering down at her. Beside him was a stretcher, with a body covered by a sheet—a very tall one.
"And that's the cliff overlooking Dr. Coffin's Niagara sanitarium…!" Daphne choked out, unable to take her eyes off of the covered body. Her terror turned to anger as she reminded herself that Vincent wasn't dead—not yet. He needed their help still. "I've had enough of these illusions! DIAGA!"
Shaggy blinked as a large sphere of light shot out from Daphne's staff, striking Dr. Coffin and knocking him off of the cliff—and then he and the entire cliff vanished. Nervously, Shaggy stared down Hyde as he charged towards him—
"AEROGA!"
A small twister whipped up as Shaggy swung his katana; Hyde's expression turned to one of terror as he turned and ran—but then got caught up in the wind as it carried him away. The swamp, like the cliff around them, vanished, leaving only the green glow on the horizon.
Daphne breathed a sigh of relief, but then sobered.
"The house might try again," she said. "Come on!"
Grabbing Shaggy's hand, she led the way towards the horizon.
Vincent's astral form was aglow with a brilliant, green aura as he traded spells with the mana of the house, which had taken on a vaguely humanoid shape with a defined head, torso, and limbs—but no other features, as if it was a giant, glowing mannequin.
And, somehow, it could still speak—
"Your power is every bit as great as I was told," it said. "Even greater than that of my former mistress, Circe."
"If you're trying to flatter me, it's all in vain," Vincent shot back. "Leave me alone; I don't want anything to do with you! Thundara!"
The thing braced itself against the lightning bolt that Vincent brought down upon it; electricity still crackled around it, but it stared at Vincent with the blank part of its head where its face should have been.
"In breaking the seal on the front doors, you have broken the enchantment Circe placed upon me."
"Yes, but, somehow, all of her foul deeds have given you so much power that you have taken on a life of your own!" Vincent snarled. "You are an empty, soulless house that has been a well of evil for millennia! The mana within you deserves to be returned to nature, not to be used as a parasitic form of nourishment! Fira!"
He hurled a gigantic fireball at the thing—it connected, causing its glow to burn bright red and prompting it to screech.
"First lightning, now fire!" it shrieked. "You mean to burn me to the ground!"
"How very astute," Vincent deadpanned.
"You spared the other witch!"
"She is a living being—you are merely negative energy that has been so influenced by Circe that you commit nothing but foul deeds!"
The thing scoffed at him.
"And how are you any different from Circe?" it asked. "You collect mortals just as she did!"
Vincent froze in the mid-casting of another spell, staring in utter confusion and indignance.
"Just what do you mean by that!?" he demanded.
"I mean that you objected to my former mistress's methods of keeping mortals with her—but you keep mortals with you!"
Vincent's eyes blazed with rage.
"Don't you dare compare me to her! We are nothing alike!" Vincent shot back. "The mortals trapped here by Circe were prisoners, held here against their wills—she demanded them to love her, and when they did not, she cursed them; only Odysseus managed to escape that fate. The mortals who stay with me are not prisoners—I treat them as my family, for I have no others. I do not restrict or demand anything of them, yet they willingly love me as a father, not out of fear or obligation, but out of their own free will. I have opened my home to them and to their friends, and they are welcome to leave at any time. But they stay because we have found a family with each other. Fira!"
He hurled another fireball at the thing, but it succeeded in dodging it.
"Perhaps I misunderstood," it admitted. "But why, then, do you resist me? You are already so powerful—with you as my new master, I can make you even more powerful! You could use that power to protect those mortals!"
"I am already the most powerful warlock in the world," Vincent boasted. "I am respected—even feared—throughout multiple realms, and those who don't already know that the mortals under my protection are not to be trifled with learn very quickly that I will retaliate to protect them. I don't need you."
The thing looked at him again with its blank face.
"But Hades doesn't fear you," it noted.
The smug look vanished from Vincent's face.
"We are in your mindscape—you are an open book to me now," the thing continued, as it slowly approached Vincent. "For all your power, you still are no match for a God like Hades—whom you know will be after every single one of those mortals in order for him to force you into doing whatever he pleases. Just as I learned the deepest fears of those two mortals you arrived with, I have learned yours, as well, and the ultimate representation of them." An image of Hyde appeared. "This is what the boy saw: his deepest fear is isolation in the face of danger, best represented by the fiend that captured him in his younger years." Now, an image of Dr. Coffin appeared. "This is what the girl saw: her deepest fear is being unable to help those she cares about with all the trouble she stumbles into, best represented by a fiend who had terrified her into believing that she was witnessing murders while being unable to do a thing to help the poor victims—only now, she saw him vivisecting you. And as for you…" An image of Hades appeared, towering behind Hyde and Coffin. "Like the girl, your deepest fear is also helplessness in the face of danger to those you care about—but you don't have to wonder what it's like to have your powers fail you at a critical moment. You don't need hypothetical visions. You remember."
The image of Hades now lifted a terrified man by the collar of his longcoat.
"…Mortifer…"
"Your deepest regret is failing him," the thing said. "And for the last three hundred years, you've been wondering what Hades has been doing to him, for the dead are in his domain. You fear that Mortifer is being punished for his association with you, the one Hades is really after. And you are terrified beyond description of the same fate befalling 'your kids,' aren't you? You fear your powers failing you at the moment you need to save them, as they failed you that night you first sealed Asmodeus with Mortifer."
Vincent could only glare back at the thing.
"And that's why you need me," it continued. "With you as my master, I can add my power to yours and make you stronger against Hades for when the seal on the Underworld breaks and he returns."
Vincent silently glared back at the thing, trying to come up with a retort, but he was quickly distracted as two voices called out—
"No, don't do it, Mr. V!"
"You don't need that thing, Vincent—you've got us!"
Perhaps he should have been surprised to see that Shaggy and Daphne had made it to his mindscape. And yet, he really wasn't.
He gave them both a reassuring grip on the shoulder as they ran up to him in relief, trying to catch their breath, before turning back to glare at the manifestation of the house's mana once more.
"…You know, you almost make sense," Vincent finally said, quietly. "But you are a foul and negative source of energy, and if I allowed you to influence my power, you would end up corrupting me, and I would still lose everything I wish to protect. And you would use my power for more foul deeds—I refuse to be a party to them!"
"That's right—so just back off and leave him alone!" Daphne ordered, brandishing her staff.
"Yeah—we're all in this together!" Shaggy agreed, holding the sword out, as well.
The creature hissed as the illusions vanished.
"I will not give him up!" it vowed.
Its fingerlike projections now expanded into a framework of giant netting that it aimed at Vincent; Shaggy and Daphne retreated to Vincent's side, and he drew an arm around each one as the net surrounded them.
"We really are in it together," Shaggy gulped.
"What do we do!?" Daphne cried.
"Anything we want," Vincent replied, sounding surprisingly unconcerned.
"Huh?" the two chorused.
"The house has forgotten two key facts—first, that this is my mindscape, meaning that we are only limited by my imagination," Vincent reminded them. "Secondly, it failed to take into account that you are the ones who provide the increase I need to my powers when I need them most."
Shaggy's eyes widened.
"Your Paladin form…!" he realized.
Daphne's breath hitched.
"But if we're the ones who unlock your Paladin form, then… you knew we'd show up here in your mindscape?" she asked.
"Let's just say that I knew it was a likely outcome after all we've been through," he said, with a smile. "Now, let's end this, shall we?"
"Yeah," Daphne smiled back. "Go get 'em!"
"…That's thinking small, Daphne; remember what I said—we are only limited by my imagination. And right now, I do think that the three of us are quite unlimited."
He closed his eyes and concentrated, and was soon glowing with a brilliant light as mithril armor began to cover him—and began to cover Shaggy and Daphne, as well. Soon they were all in similar armor and headpieces.
"Like, wow!" Shaggy exclaimed. "We're all Paladins!"
The house-creature shrieked as, with a swing of his sword, Shaggy freed them all from the netting, and now Daphne tried her hand at her new powers—
"Heavenly Light!" she called, recalling having seen Vincent use that spell.
The light streamed down upon the creature, which shrieked again as it cringed under the beams.
"Well done—but if we want to end it quickly, remember that fire is its weakness," Vincent informed them. "At the end of the day, it's just a house." He aimed his left hand at the creature. "Sacred Fire!"
"Sacred Fire!" Daphne and Shaggy echoed, mirroring his actions with their right hands.
The thing let out one final shriek as all three holy fireballs hit their mark; the shriek turned into a wail of defeat as it dissipated for good, but it was barely noticed by the three Paladins as they came together in a victory group hug.