Two legendary spellcasters—one good and one evil—stared each other down. Despite the tension between them, there were smiles on both of their faces, much to Mena’s surprise. Anguish and Gemini both paced in a circle, mirroring each other’s movement, but neither acted or whipped out a spell; Words were exchanged instead. “Arabella Willow,” Gemini said, playfully straightening up his cuff links. “It’s been ages, Arabella. I love what you’ve done with your face…it’s so much more…evil.”

Anguish tossed her locks of purplish gorgon hair and smiled. “It’s much more suiting to me…and my inner anguish.”

Gemini shook his head. “You know, Arabella… That darkness within you is having a fling. Once it finishes with you, it will move on to someone else. People may come and go, but nightmares are forever.”

Anguish lost her smile immediately. “There’s only one difference between me and the previous wearers of these dark heels, Gemini”—Anguish gave a mad smile, with cracked bloodshot eyes—”I am the nightmare embodied.”

Gemini merely shrugged his shoulders. “Come back to us, Arabella—is what I’d tell you, if I cared. But you’re too far gone. Heck, you’ve probably changed your birth certificate by now.”

Anguish’s voice chuckled coldly. “I don’t have time for such trivialities. But trust me, I would because I’m truly consumed with…anguish.”

Gemini laughed again. “Your new name’s got a good ring to it. Good for dramatic puns. You always were a theater kid, Arabella. You have a penchant for the theatric.”

Anguish rolled her eyes. “You seem to be the one making speeches, Gemini. Why don’t you hit me with one of your best attacks…or have you truly grown old and weak?”

The Clown Prince of Dreams laughed. “Perhaps my dear, you should check behind your ear.”

Anguish cautiously reached behind her ear and pulled out a playing card with a fist on it. The image of the fist shot out and smacked Anguish in the face. The Blood Siren was none-to-pleased with the outcome. Especially when her former master began laughing at her with his nasally, annoying laugh.

Gemini put his hand behind his head. “That was my sleight of fist. Taught to me by my uncle from another dimension, Archibald.”

Anguish grimaced and threw her head forward. “That was a cheap parlor trick from a children’s magic show. I’d expect more from the greatest living wizard in all the realms.”

Anguish extended her arms, shadowy balls of energy coagulated in her hands. “How about I show you what I’ve mastered since the last time we met?”

Anguish’s low voice raised to a theatrical pitch as the energy in her hands swelled. “So many innocents have succumbed to this. Soooooo many. One blast from my almighty beam of screams, and if you aren’t stone cold dead, you will be reduced to a quivering, crying pile of jelly for the rest of your life.”

Gemini yawned. “Less screaming, more beaming please.”

Anguish let out a horrifying shriek as she held her hands together. A purple blast of energy lead by a screaming skull with hollowed black eyes shot directly at Gemini. Mena screamed out the name of her headmaster and closed her eyes.

But instead of hearing her headmaster crying on the floor, when she opened her eyes, Gemini had thrown up a giant tarot featuring a knight with a two-dimensional shield, blocking the energy projection that ran into it. She breathed a sigh of relief, but Janus muttered, “Oh no… I think it might be too powerful for him.”

Mena looked back up and watched Gemini’s knight straining against the absolute power of Anguish’s scream beam. It was overtaking him.

“Please no…” Mena whispered, “Please let him be alright,” but her prayers were futile.

The scream beam sliced the card to ribbons and Gemini took the full brunt of it. The beam was so bright, that it nearly blotted him out of existence to the mortal eye. The beam faded and Anguish released her hands. Gemini still stood, but his head looked directly at the ground and his dark, frizzy hair fell over his face. He was no longer laughing and seemed a shadow of what he once was.

“No…” Mena cried; her eyes lined with tears. Professor Caligari screamed out Gemini’s name too and started sobbing.

Anguish tapped forward in her heels, investigating her prey. “Tsk…tsk…you should have spent more time practicing your magic skills rather than your wit…master.”

“You’re…right…” Gemini said, refusing to pick up his head. “I was foolish…I let my guard down.”

“It was inevitable, master,” Anguish said. “The student shall always exceed the master.”

“Correct…” Gemini mumbled in a desensitized voice. “All hail the Blood Siren. Queen of the Nightmare Void and soon to be the…PSYCHE.”

Gemini perked up his head with a wild grin on his face. “Fooled you,” he sang and held up his fingers which had been crossed behind his back. He pulled open his tuxedo. Much to Mena…and Anguish’s astonishment, it was lined with water pistols and bicycle horns. He whipped out a water gun, squirting it in her face and honking a bicycle horn and laughing madly like a maniac. A pie soon followed directly into Anguish’s pink face. “You may have fooled me once all those years ago,” Gemini laughed. “But nobody truly fools a fool, for we are the reigning masters of fooling around.”

“Why are you still standing?” Anguish asked with a suddenly panicked expression. “Why aren’t you on your knees? Why aren’t you crying?”

Gemini stopped messing around and said candidly, “To be honest my dear, I lost all traces of sentimentality when you sent your pet phantom to scar me from the inside. Now I’m only full of two things: butt whooping and puns”—Gemini slyly whispered—“And I’m all out of puns.”

Gemini continued to honk the horn like an idiot, but when Anguish shrieked, he quickly reached in his tuxedo and held out a deck of cards. “Arabella…draw…” he said with a knowing smile. Refusing to be fooled again, Anguish refused to draw, and Gemini warbled happily. “If not, I will.”

He pulled out a card. It had black aces and spades on it. He tossed the card on the ground, leaped on it and flew around like he was riding a magic carpet or a surfboard. “Surf’s up aboard an Ace of Spade.” Gemini laughed as he began throwing cards all around Anguish. They all grew to life size and formed a prism around her. Fists began to launch out of them, punching her around the prism of cards, as Gemini announced, “Behold my DECK of cards.”

“I thought…” Anguish groaned between punches “That you were all out…of puns…”

“Ah, never mind,” Gemini said as he soared around on his giant card. “I’m always down for some more punishment.”

Anguish dropped to the floor and the cards all piled back into a neatly stacked deck that went up Gemini’s sleeve. He stood over her beaming.

“Arabella,” he said softly to Anguish’s crumpled body. “I should have finished you off when I had the chance. I did not realize how much worse you’d become. Fortunately…I can do it now…”

Mena watched…not knowing how to feel about Gemini’s words of condemnation as a tiny shadow traveled along the floor over to Anguish’s body. Dark Mena poked her head out of it. “Mommy,” she said. “I got my fanny handed to me.”

Anguish weakly eyed the shadow girl’s head, popping out of the floor like a frog in a pond. “Fortunately for you and I, sweetheart, we have power together that no one else has. Give me your hand…”

Dark Mena reached her hand out and touched Anguish’s frigid pink hand. Together, the darkness swirled around them, lifting both of their bodies up. Anguish smiled warmly at Dark Mena who looked up at her. “Daughter, I feel renewed…” she gushed as the wounds and lacerations on her body healed. “We are truly a mother daughter dream team.”

“No mom,” Dark Mena said with a snicker. “We are a mother daughter NIGHTMARE team.”

“Yes…” Anguish hissed. “And let us do what we should have done to start with.”

Anguish grabbed Dark Mena’s hand and a spiraling void formed at the center of their union. It enveloped them in a black-as-night slice into reality with jagged edges all around it. The void, like a hungry mouth lunged forward and gobbled up Gemini, causing everyone to scream as he vanished before their eyes. Anguish and Dark Mena followed him into the rift. A blood red eye shone at the center of it.

“T-They created a quantum…quandary…in this dream…” Mena stammered in disbelief.

The quandary grew larger and larger, sucking like a vacuum and attempting to eat everything in the room. Anguish’s cold laugh echoed through the room. “All of Wormwood…and the rest of the world…will be consumed with complete and utter anguish.”