"What were you thinking, Patton?"

"Clearly, he wasn't."

"I… I'm sorry. I just… I didn't mean to do this," Patton stammered. "I was going to spend time with Jan and Remus and Virgil, but they were in the Imagination, so I just thought I'd pop in and find them, but…"

"You got distracted," Logan said, pinching his nose. "I knew you would if you went in. You always do."

Patton squirmed under their sharp, angry eyes. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "But things are okay now, and I want to show you something."

"Okay?!" Roman gasped. "It is not okay! You not only went into the Imagination alone but you went into Remus's half! Even I don't come into this half too often! It's far more dangerous than my half! What were you thinking, Patton?"

Patton cast his eyes down at his shoes, his entire body slumping. "I guess I wasn't," he said dully.

Janus, Remus, and Virgil watched the scene uneasily. Patton looked utterly crushed, and after watching him subconsciously carve an obsidian statue that poured lava, this was a worrying sign. Especially in Remus's half of the Imagination. Virgil stepped forward quickly.

"Hey, guys. You need to see something."

Logan and Roman ignored him.

"You don't even know how worried I was!" Roman said.

"We were both concerned," Logan said.

"Oh really?" Patton muttered. "You, Mr. Logic, feeling something? Say it isn't so."

Janus's eyes went wide, and he hurried over, trying to step between them, but Logan shoved him back.

"Excuse me?" he asked in disbelief. "As I recall, I've expressed more emotions than usual in the past few weeks! I am improving!"

Patton looked up, a strange glimmer around his eyes. "Yeah? Well it's not even a fraction of a drop of the emotions that I feel. Yet everybody fawns over you the moment you feel something."

Remus walked around and tried to push Roman back, muttering to him. Roman shoved him away. "Get off of me, Remus!"

Remus went over to stand beside Virgil and Janus. They looked at each other.

"We tried," Remus said with a shrug.

"#&$% it," Virgil groaned. "I want to run now."

"I wouldn't suggest picking flight just yet," Janus murmured. "Perhaps this will end peacefully."

The ground trembled beneath their feet. "I doubt it," Virgil said, anxiety underlying his tone. His eyes glittered and he bit his bottom lip, revealing his canines. "This is gonna be so bad…"

As Roman and Logan continued to glare at Patton, Janus fought back the urge to attack. He rather liked Patton, and to see him hurting made his more primal side flare. He decided to try one more time. He knew that Patton wouldn't want to give in to the negative feelings. So, despite his instincts telling him to flee, he hurried forward and placed his hand on Patton's shoulder.

"Patton, we totally don't want to show them how you feel."

With his nerves so high and his instincts set on edge, the lie slipped from his lips as easily as breathing, and he only realized what he'd said when Patton's eyes turned orange.

"You bastard!" Patton suddenly barked.

"No, wait!" Remus yelped.

"It was a lie, Patton!" Virgil hollered.

But the damage was done. Patton bared his teeth, his eyes crackling with energy. "Really? They don't know, and they shouldn't? Well, I for one think it's time they find out."

The ground began to tremble.

"$&!#!" Remus yelped, and Janus shot backward, stumbling over his feet as he fled from Patton.

Logan and Roman watched in astonishment as the three Dark Sides bolted away from Patton. By the time they recognized it was time to run, Patton had turned his wrath on them.

"You have no idea what feeling is," Patton snarled. "Let me show you what it feels like when you just don't want to deal with silly old me."

Vines exploded out of the ground, wrapping them up so tightly that it hurt. Then Patton's eyes gleamed and he raised his hand and slowly clenched his fist. Thick black thorns grew out of the vines, and Logan and Roman screamed as their skin was punctured.

"Ow! Patton! Stop!" Logan begged.

"Stop? But you told me repression is bad. And I'm just being a good boy and showing you how I feel. So feel it Logan. Feel what I did because I clearly don't think things through. That's so typical of me isn't it?"

The thorns dug deeper into their flesh, and something burned as it was injected into their bloodstream. Immediately, Logan burst into tears and began to cry as his heart constricted with pain and loneliness. Roman screeched and writhed as feelings poured through him. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but it was dark and frightening and too much! Was this how Patton felt? Was this how powerful his emotions were?

"Aw, what's the matter?" Patton crooned, prowling back and forth in front of them. "Are you upset again? Get over it, Roman. It's illogical, Logan. It doesn't hurt that badly."

Virgil stared at Patton, his heart hammering. Fight and flight were wrestling inside of him, and he was ready to choose flight at a moment's notice. But Janus's frightened, vulnerable eyes tugged at his heart.

"What did I do?" Janus groaned, covering his face.

"You reacted instinctively," Remus said, his fingers nervously drumming on the tree trunk. "It's not your fault he's too far gone. He's never been acclimatized to my side of the Imagination. This was bound to happen. And those bumbling buffoons pushed him too far at the wrong #&$% time."

"What do we do?" Virgil whispered.

Remus looked reluctant and held out his hand. His morning star appeared, and Janus and Virgil balked.

"We can't fight Patton!" Janus yelped.

"Have you lost your mind?" Virgil hissed.

"We need to calm him down somehow!" Remus exclaimed. "He's literally torturing them, Janny! What will he say when he's back to normal?"

Janus licked his lips. "We'll fight him with the Imagination," he finally said. "No physical damage unless absolutely necessary."

"Done," Remus said.

"Okay. Fight or flight," Virgil said. He shook out his body, his eye patches growing past the eyeshadow he so carefully applied every day. "Fight or flight. Fight or flight." He shivered, and his pupils dilated. "I need to stay and… fight!"

He lunged forward and sprinted toward Patton, who was still grinning as Logan and Roman struggled in a sea of tears and pain.

"Hurts so bad, doesn't it?" Patton snarled. "How about a little more?"

The ground shifted and Patton tumbled backward as Virgil knocked into him. At a silent command from Virgil, gravity was the other way around, and Patton fell into the sky with Virgil wrapped around his middle. Remus darted forward, still on the ground, and threw out a rope to latch around Patton's waist. But Patton was angry again, and the Imagination reacted to that anger. Streaks of fire rained from the sky, and Remus swore as they pelted toward him. Virgil switched the gravity again, and they fell toward the ground. Patton hit the ground on his feet and stood up, his eyes flashing orange. Virgil wheezed as he landed on his back and the breath was knocked out of him. Patton glared at him, but before he could do anything, Remus took the Imagination in his power and flexed.

Patton, as angry as he was, could not manipulate the Imagination in the same way that any of the Dark Sides could due to lack of practice, but he was far outmatched in Remus. Virgil was encased in a tree before Patton blinked, and as Patton frowned in confusion, Remus encased his feet in rock.

"Don't make us hurt you, Patton," Remus said. "Take a breath. Listen."

"Hurt me? Why not? That's what everybody likes to do," Patton sneered.

Remus huffed as the rocks around Patton's feet turned red. "$&!#."

They exploded. Remus grunted as shards of the superheated material burrowed into his skin, but he ignored the pain. Instead, he threw his hand out and water erupted like a geyser out of the ground. As soon as it came into contact with Patton, steam erupted around them, obscuring their vision. Patton was so angry that the Imagination perceived it as heat, and Remus turned to his brother and Logan as Janus jumped into the steam to try and deal with Patton.

"You. Absolute. %#*&ing. Idiots!" Remus grunted as he hacked through the vines.

As soon as he peeled them away, essence began flowing from their puncture wounds. Roman's essence was a shimmering red and Logan's was dark blue, and their clothes were immediately soaked.

"Us? What did we do?" Roman demanded. "Patton's the one who lost his mind."

There was a cry from Patton from the dissipating steam. "Ow! Where are you, snake? Stand still!"

"Yeah. He has. Because you pushed him!" Remus snapped. "He came in through my room because he was having intrusive thoughts! Which stemmed from his negative emotions being so strong! And you said he doesn't think!" Logan blushed. "And you basically called him an idiot! When he was feeling so %#*&ing bad already!"

Roman looked away. "I was worried!"

Virgil, who had finally caught his breath again, peeled away the tree and stood up. He looked so wild that Logan wasn't surprised when he saw his canines flashing as he talked.

"What do we do? We need to stop him!"

"Well, we don't want to hurt him," Remus said. "Short of smashing his face in, we're kind of short on options! He's linked to the Imagination through his %#*&ing emotions, and that's not good considering how %#*&ing strong they are for him!"

Virgil's eyes went past Remus to see that Janus was keeping away from Patton, but he was finally snagged by the Heart's strong hands as the steam dissipated. Patton looked outraged, and Janus suddenly looked panicked. His pupils constricted, and Virgil shouted.

"Jan! No!"

But Patton leaned down to sneer at him, and Janus couldn't fight his instincts. Threatened and scared, he lashed out with his fangs and sank them into Patton's neck, injecting venom into his veins. Patton's face twisted in pain and then he paled as he released Janus's shirt. He staggered back as Janus clapped his hands over his mouth, stained with light blue essence, and stared in abject horror as Patton's skin began to turn a dusky blue color.

"$&!#!" Virgil screeched and bolted over to Janus to grab him.

Remus agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly and spewed out garbled sentence fragments full of expletives as he bolted for Patton and caught him before he collapsed. The venom had clearly snapped him out of his emotional haze, and he looked frightened as he reached a shaky hand up to his neck.

"Ow," he whimpered. "Ow. Ow. It hurts."

Remus hissed curses between his teeth as he pulled Patton close. "I know it hurts. Stay still. You're gonna be sick for a while, okay? It'll be okay."

He pulled a bottle of the essence concoction out of the air and soaked a rag with it. As his hands began to turn red from his soap allergy, he dabbed the snake bite and the essence slowed then stopped.

"There. No more bleeding. You'll be okay. We'll get you into a bath and then put you to bed and you can sleep for a while. Does that sound good?"

"Jan…" Patton croaked, tears in his eyes.

"He's real sorry, Pop-injay."

Patton shivered, clearly not satisfied, but he was quickly becoming too sick to talk. Remus scooped him up and summoned a door then barreled through it. Janus still had his mouth covered, his eyes big and horrified as Virgil tried to keep him calm.

"It's okay, Jan. He's going to be okay. You know that, right? Everything will be okay."

"I bit him," Janus whispered. "I bit Patton. I bit him. I bit him! I BIT HIM!"

And Janus burst into tears, turning and running through the door.

"#&$% it!" Virgil shouted and bolted after him.

Roman and Logan stood there, essence pouring from their puncture wounds and pooling around them, and said nothing. They were stunned. It had happened so fast, and they were still in shock. Logan peered around then saw something unusual past the trees. He walked over and pushed through them to see the statue that Patton had subconsciously made. Was this what he wanted to show them?"

"Oh," Logan hissed.

"Patton made this?" Roman asked, having followed Logan through the trees.

"I believe we made a grave error," Logan said shakily.

"No kidding." Roman looked down at himself. "What do we do to make it right?"

"I'm not sure."

They stared at the statue of Patton, trapped in a cage and curled in on himself, his obsidian face twisted in unimaginable pain as his heart bled lava into a basin, and wondered if they had finally pushed Patton too far. Would he ever be able to forgive them? And what would happen with Janus and the others? The two Sides looked at each other then turned without a word and headed for the door, wondering what they had done.