Chapter 16: I Promise You Pain

What was once a tranquil memory from her childhood became the scene of a mystical battle amongst a background of monochromatic hues. The dreadful background brought more focus on the colorful characters in the scene, the bright pink auras of the anomaly attacking everyone with desire to see the crimson from their veins. In the span of five minutes the temple grounds were in chaos, with Lydia forced to dodge the pink auras she knew as a child. Some of the party had an easier time avoiding death blows when Wilhelm manipulates some of his own power to block more attacks. The man turns some the pink auras away and throws them back at the anomaly with some damage done. Wilhelm maintains his focus with the concentration of a conductor directing an orchestra as the anomaly recovers and attacks him. As he tries to focus his attacks at the anomaly, his minions see several sets of hands emerge from the ground again contorting out of the earth like zombies towards their master. Virgil kicks back a mannequin before firing one of his ether-based attacks at another.

"Enough of the mannequins! Why are there so many of these damn mannequins," A frustrated Virgil shouts as the creepy creatures surround them.

"What? This isn't so bad. Just don't let them go Army of the Undead on us and we'll be fine." Albedo replies only to find himself now being ganged up on by the murderous mannequins. Albedo moves back defending himself while trying to find an opening Wilhelm had instructed about minutes earlier.

Albedo continues looking as the chosen distraction for the mannequins, and Voyager assists Wilhelm in blocking some of the pink auras as they shot towards them, with Kevin and Virgil looking for a weak spot to attack. Lydia jumps out of the way of some of the pink lights grabbing and stabbing at her flesh and attempts to strike back missing each strike. Wilhelm breaks some of his shield to send an energy blast at the anomaly, the anomaly contorting out of the way and banging on the ground a small shock wave. The group breaks off into pairs trying not to stumble from the shockwave, the anomaly pleading out again, 'Lydia, we can't keep avoiding this forever. I need you to accept me. The knights can never be reunited.'

"Let me go! Please! I just want to wake up," Lydia pleaded and punched away at a set of pink orbs trying to reach her. Wilhelm uses the opportunity to disappear and reappear closer to the distracted anomaly, attacking it with a concentrated buildup of tri-colored auras. His attack is blocked by the anomaly's summoned spear, the anomaly glares at the albino man with anger.

"You really need to take no for an answer." Feeling unamused by his words, he sends Wilhelm flying backwards. The man flips back to land on his feet and looks up to see some of the pink auras fly back to the anomaly. It builds up the auras into an ominous swarm growling in irritation and sending them flying high in the air.

'You will learn the error of your choice...this should help you see that...' The group is caught off guard by the sound of something falling. Wilhelm's eyes go wide recalling this attack. He shouts for the others to move quickly away, the group feverish in their attempts to avoid a barrage of sharp pink auras coming from the sky in an impaling motion. Lydia tries to reappear away from the surprise attack when she is struck by a sharp pain, her side grazed badly by an impaling orb of pink light. She yelps falling onto the ground. The girl moves her hand from her side to see some blood coming from the shallow wound, hissing when the wound starts to smoke and burn like her flesh was on fire. She notices one of the Testaments got hit by one of the lance shaped auras, Kevin beside Albedo sees the lance disappear after stabbing his shoulder blade. He was about to start healing it when he suddenly feels his shoulder burning up and igniting in a reddish pink blaze. The man starts screaming falling to the ground on instinct while the others witness his distress.

"Hey Winnicott, I think you're on fire."

"I know, Albedo!" A pained Kevin growled and screamed rolling around on the ground trying fast to put out the supernatural flame. Lydia starts panicking seeing her own wound catch fire. One of the other Testaments tries to put out the fire by shooting ice at their wounds having a positive effect on their burns.

"What kind of attack is this?!"

'A taste of what you will experience if you continue on this path, Lydia. Do not reject me and end your pain. Help me rectify what has been wronged,' the anomaly moves up more of the pink lights turning into another barrage of raining death. The girl looks up having a delayed scream as the malevolent lights aimed right towards her with Wilhelm yanking her away with telekinesis. The Testaments fall back dodging deadly pink waves, with Albedo nearly turning into a pin cushion barely missing a fast streak of orbs.

"This is a very extreme reaction to being rejected!" Virgil shouts back at the enemy and hits a set of mannequins with his Gnosis guardian summoned from his arm.

"It's a malevolent ghost, not a jilted lover! Stop trying to reason with it!" Voyager criticizes Virgil and gets startled by another attack from the anomaly followed by a couple of mannequins trying to gang up on the two of them. The two team up running toward the mannequins and form a double energy blast at the enemy knocking them down like a set of bowling balls before they disappear. Lydia helps Kevin heal his shoulder faster before running away from a clawing mannequin's elongated nails. The healed Kevin intercepts the attack and returns fire with a flaming phoenix shaped inferno hitting the mannequin and some of the enemies behind it. Wilhelm stops holding out his shield for the others, snapping an ether attack with his own tri-colored auras, and crushes the mannequins where they stood finishing them off. He looks for the White Testament to see him dodging and looking for openings near the anomaly to attack it again.

'Albedo, have you found an opening on the anomaly's weak spot?'

'No, not yet!'

"Keep looking," commanded Wilhelm.

Albedo continues looking for a weak spot around the anomaly with another Testament popping in the anomaly's eye to distract again. His violet eyes narrow watching the deadly pink light show attacking now Kevin and Virgil, witnessing the attack pattern leave a brief opening on the anomaly's left side.

'Yo, I found the weak spot! Aim for the upper left side before he blocks it.'

Wilhelm grins and replies, 'I'll aim a distracting hit, while you strike him in his weak spot. Go!'

Wilhelm teases the anomaly by taunting it and throwing more psychic pressure onto the creature as it comes closer to Wilhelm, giving a damaged Voyager some relief from the anomaly's pink waves. The distraction being effective, Albedo then signals for Lydia to move forward and attack the anomaly. The girl takes a deep breath in and tries putting her best effort into sending a shockwave at the anomaly, Albedo combining his Carrion of Souls attack after her shockwave. The anomaly in toppled over by the attack damaging it before it realized the surprised attack behind him. The girl stumbles a bit from the vibration their combined powers left and regains her footing beside Albedo, who already stepped back to throw another ether attack. Lydia moves away to help the others fight when she finds herself plucked off the ground by a telekinetic force pulling her forward. The girl tries fighting off the supernatural grip the anomaly's power had on her waist and legs, dragging the soles of her feet into the ground. Her head gets whiplash from stopping abruptly now inches from the anomaly, gasping in terror.

'Forgive me, Lydia. But I must end this, I need to take control no matter what it takes...' The girl struggles when she feels the pink auras from the anomaly start to crawl up along her body. Witnessing her body become overwhelmed by a swarm of dark pink auras, Wilhelm tries to pull her back again and it met with resistance from the anomaly. Like when she was attacked by the demented little girl version of herself, Lydia's will rejects the feeling of being consumed, the anomaly's power burning up like a candle while she screams in her struggle. The anomaly starts glowing bright with the girl seeing visions of the anomaly's memories. Wilhelm tries to break the anomaly's grip on her using his powers but finds himself engaged in a tug-a-war trying to pull her away. The man shouts at the corrupted knight, "Stop, Anshelm!" The anomaly only grows angrier, snarling for him to go away, attempting to push him back to the Testaments. Lydia tries hitting and pushing away at the pink aura running up her body like a swarm of locusts. Her arms suddenly grab onto her head being hit with a splitting headache from another set of visions from the anomaly's memories. The anomaly buries its sadness and starts to shift shape losing its humanoid form the more Lydia struggled.

"AH! Stop it, I don't want to die! Stop, please stop! Help me!" Lydia screams seeing the auras go up her waist with one arm outstretched.

"Lydia, don't panic! Keep fighting it!" shouts Wilhelm with two of the Testaments trying to aid in saving the girl.

"It literally is absorbing me! I have a right to panic!" Lydia screams scrambling to free herself with her free arm and starts screaming more when she sees her body start to go completely pink like the auras consuming her. Albedo and Kevin try to pry the anomaly off with different types of attacks but are thrown back by the anomaly's aggressive strength when it roars with agitation. The anomaly and the girl's voices distort with her vision becoming dizzy and her body slowly losing its solidity the longer she struggled. "Let her go, Anshelm! No, this can't be happening. I can feel her starting to fade away," frowned a concerned Wilhelm.

'If he keeps this up, Anshelm will awaken and all five of us will perish. We got to think quickly now-yes! Why didn't I think of that sooner? Hmm, it might be a gamble, but I can always manage to pull a Deus ex machina in real time.'

"Voyager, follow my lead, we need to split and aim at the-Wilhelm? What are you doing there?" Kevin asks watching Wilhelm change his stance after releasing his telekinetic grip on the trapped Lydia. The girl is left screaming almost being completely engulf in the death spiral of dark pink auras before Wilhelm suddenly disappears and reappears about to touch the girl's head. He turns around for a few seconds to say, "I'll see you in a few minutes." The moment he touches the girl's head and the anomaly's spiraling orbs of dark pink light, Wilhelm disappears with Lydia in tow. The four Testaments stood back mid attacks in shock seeing their master disappear out of the blue.

"Did...did Wilhelm just get eaten by the anomaly?" asked a dumbstruck Albedo.

"AHHHHH! Master Wilhelm!" Kevin and Voyager started freaking out in unison, their faces turning purple when processing what just happened, while Virgil stomps his foot feeling livid.

"God Dammit! How can this get any worse?!" Virgil's angry and cliche question was answered with the rumble of the anomaly roaring and morphing into a new shape. The morphed shaped releases a set of Serraninae Gnosis from the anomaly ushering in a main Gnosis shaped like a very large mannequin with sickly pale skin and a mask adorned with sorrow. The main Gnosis's body grabs a spear from its cracked chest, gurgling like it had blood in its throat. The creature contorts and roars at the Testaments, who were left with no choice but to defend themselves. The four men charge forward forming their own unique attacks as angry Virgil growls back at the Gnosis shouting,

"Oh, and here's the icing on the shitty cake! Let us out of here damnit!"

-Location Unknown-

Wilhelm stumbles forward after trying to reach for the girl. Briefly disoriented he observes quickly the change in scenery with the shrine and forest gone and a new beach standing before him. It was vast and empty of life except for the muted terrain of a few trees and rocks behind him. He recognized the quiet seaside from the past times he visited when looking for shining wills like he was collecting sand dollars off the beach.

'My not so thought-out backup plan worked I see,' mused Wilhelm. If he couldn't escape into the Conscious Domain, he deduced he could delay Anshelm's plan by pulling them into the Beach of Nothingness. "If I was a lost soul wanting to be absorbed into nothing, this would be the best place to go." His mused grin fades out looking at a small bit of blonde hair in his hand, all he could grab before the three were moved to this part of the imaginary domain. "You surprise me, Anshelm. It is very cruel of you to kill someone this way. Forcing her into this will not bring you what you seek, brother, for human beings have a strong fear of death. Even if she herself wants to die, the girl's innate fear dwelling within her human half keeps her from wanting to join the Collective Consciousness." Wilhelm feels something building up around him in the sand when he sees more pink lights float along the bleak scene.

"Even a half human like her, will keep fighting it until her rejection of the Collective Consciousness becomes too great. So much that I fear she would become like those ghastly creatures of rejection. And you will only continue the cycle...the others, I need to figure out where Lydia is and find a way to free them from her subconscious domain." Wilhelm starts to glare below him watching a human shaped figure emerge from the ground like a glowing pink nightlight. It hissed and contorted at him like a zombie with Wilhelm mentally groaning how the child could be so valuable in strength yet such a chronic liability. His eye twitches not bothering to look around knowing several human shaped pink figures began to circle him. The creatures now starting to take on the form of Gnosis being attracted to strong feelings of malice. Wilhelm softly growls with annoyance muttering with disdain, "Liddy, if I didn't need you to help me out of this predicament, I would have drowned you in the waves by now. Now, don't keep me worried, and show me where you are..." The gnosis like creatures lunge first when Wilhelm sends the creatures crushing beneath his feet in a blaze of aggression and earth toned auras.

Meanwhile, over a large distance away out of the sight of others, Lydia's muted screams can be heard again when she falls forward onto a white sandy beach. She gasps and pants realizing the anomaly wasn't trying to absorb her anymore and gets up from the ground in a stumble. A terrified Lydia looks around anxiously to see nothing but the vast shoreline, unnerved to see none of the Testaments nor Wilhelm here either. Behind her again was only a cliffside topped with a field of flowers and a few small trees and rocks, looking forward again she sees the calm blue waves faded by an atmosphere of a faded color palette. There was a calmness in the air leaving a feeling of being numb. Yes, numbness was a good adjective to describe this place to her. She felt no joy, but no sorrow, no agony, not even a feeling of tomorrow.

'This isn't Atayla, but it seems familiar. Feels like I've been here before, but why? I don't remember ever coming to this place.'

"You have, you just can't remember..." She is startled by the anomaly's voice. Lydia darts her eyes to the anomaly who had lost his eerie pink glow appearing less like a ghost and more like his original self. The man had a similar face to Wilhelm but differed in his hair being straighter, his shoulders broader, eyes a more scarlet shade of red, and a voice that spoke in a deeper tone. He walks up beside her in an antique set of black and silver armor as Lydia steps back frightened. His body language was less angry, now appearing to regain some of his patience and stoicism. He maintains his patience for the moment, appearing aware she couldn't remember him even after all this time out of the conscious domain.

"It's funny...every single squire I came across had the same problem. Every last one had the worst memory, their forgetfulness and confusion even worse near the end of their life. You are no different I see. I don't know what would be worse, to be demented before death or having to face death with all clarity. Which do you think is worse?"

"Why have you brought me here?" she asks being curt. He stares out at the monochromatic sea ignoring her curtness, cursing his brother's interference, and speaks with a dejected tone,

"A long time ago, way before you were even a thought, lived a set of beings within the real number domain sworn to guard the lower domain from falling out of balance with itself and the upper domain. One day, when fulfilling his duty, one of the guardians, Anshelm, died tragically and lost his physical body and anchor to the real number domain. His death resulted in him becoming an entity that purely exists in the imaginary number domain, where everything that was him became exposed, including his light and darkness, everything that he was, everything that existed within him. Unlike others who feared the process of being swallowed by the Collective Unconsciousness, he held no fear of death. In fact, he felt drawn to it, wanting to be a part of it and let it swallow him whole. But..."

The anomaly shuttered recalling his past and sighs when he continues, "I wasn't permitted to. Cursed to keep coming back as a separate entity, neither turning to a Gnosis nor able to be truly unified with the Collective Unconsciousness. Anshelm...I mean...I myself was made to be reincarnated to keep coming back again, and again, and again in the consciousness of another will. I've waited for many years in this place, stuck on the shore unable to walk into the sea to be one with the Collective Unconsciousness, waking up in the body of another and dying the next. Until..."

Lydia became saddened by the tale putting her hands to her chest in melancholy. "A...Anshelm, if you wish to be with the Collective Unconsciousness, why don't reject the one who brings you back? It can't MAKE you live if you don't want to exist."

The ancient knight chuckles in bitterness over her suggestion replying, "You don't get it. How else can I explain to you, foolish child? YOU are the reason I am still here!" His finger points at her like a sharp dagger and says bitterly, "Each time I was brought back, another will forms into existence. The moment you came to be had forever latched me onto you like a chain tying me down to a sentient chunk of flesh!"

"Every last one of the squires was nothing more than a warm body created to bring me back into the real number domain, but I never wanted to come back! I sought my own destruction for eons wishing to rest. Whether they wanted to exist or not, I took over each one and thrown us into the pits of destruction praying each time would be the end...but it wasn't the end...it never was..."

Anshelm sounded like he wanted to cry and asks a hurt Lydia, "Do you know what it's like to keep coming back? To be pulled from the Collective Unconsciousness when all you want to do is rest, slowly losing a part of you each time because of another's desire. You feel you are forever trapped in your personal hell far from the reach of salvation."

His eyes plead with her in his depression now feeling like he was begging her at this point. "Lydia, what I am asking for may seem monstrous, yet I can't bare it anymore. Please, open your will to mine and let me end our existence together. My existence cannot bring anyone happiness if she knew I had awakened." The girl looks teary eyed at the man trying to stay composed while in disbelief that she felt guilty for something beyond her control. The girl clutches the sweater vest on her chest feeling sickened by the thought of being forced to fight for self-preservation, and then clenches her fists to her side when she speaks firmly.

"Anshelm, I know you're in such suffering, I'm so sorry you had to live this way so long. But...even if living puts me at risk of being used, I don't want to fade into nothingness. I don't want to disappear or lose myself. I just can't..." The girl loses her fragile facade of firmness which turned into her body betraying her as the trembling frightened young woman she actually was.

Anshelm hangs his head understanding her fears. He didn't want to hurt another soul, a part of him knowing she was only alive this long because of another he once knew. Each time he looked at her he could see fleeting glimpses of her in her face and in her actions, and able to faintly recall their days together on Lost Jerusalem. Unrequited feelings leaving him always staring at the back of the woman that was far from his reach. How strange fate was to put him in this position.

"Your words do not fall on deaf ears, Lydia. It is natural to fear what many humans fear in the end, even when life has yet to begin. Please understand that I don't like this either. If I could, I would have found another way to stop her. But this is the only way to keep her from hurting us or Yeshua and the lower domain."

"I won't let you kill me!" the girl yells.

Anshelm smiles bitterly at the girl and pulls an elegant spear from out of nowhere. Lydia keeps herself from being intimidated and stands back trying to think of a way to fight him by herself. "I wouldn't expect anything different; you were always a tenacious child. Even with the odds stacked against you." Lydia grits her teeth feeling his power radiate around her in an ominous light show. Anshelm takes on the stance of a soldier and aims his weapon at her allowing the pink orbs of light to fly in an offensive stance. Out of reflex, the girl's body begins to do the same but in a defensive stance. His voice takes on a colder tone, "Allow me to give you one last chance before I assimilate you. Take this chance to save your pathetic soul from oblivion!"