Chapter 11: Eternal Night: P1: Synch

"You mentally synched up," Lhyna said as she saw the three wolves. The darkness faded away, revealing endless empty seats.

"We're protecting each other, from you," Ahmond said. "We practiced some group therapy, and attuned to each other."

Mosor said, "Maybe you shouldn't have let empathy and understanding others be a quality. It kinda helps out."

"You don't even know any psychic magic," Lhyna said. She took a few steps back. "Amazing control of dream magic, I admit. But your control ends now." She filled the world back with darkness, but Mosor jumped into it.

"I already have nightmares for a week, don't I?" Mosor asked. "What makes you think I'm afraid of you?"

She saw horrific, contorted masks of people she knew as she ran down the cascading darkness. Colliding with Lhyna, Mosor bit down on her neck and took her down.

Kyofi ran forward, and jumped before frog splashing Lhyna. Vanos bit down on her tail, and Ahmond sat on her.

The four kept Lhyna pinned and she thrashed angrily. Activating nightmare magic could backfire on her. "It appears we've reached an impasse," she said. "It might be best, for your sanities, that you all go away."

Kyofi said, "It might be best you go away, and stop invading our dreams. The four of us have to wake up eventually. Next time you try invading, we'll take you on. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us."

Lhyna scoffed. "Is that right?"

Darkness engulfed Kyofi. The others yelled, but Kyofi saw herself. It was during their session, with the others saying she might not have the third quality.

"The failures of the present. You know you're not the one with the third quality. It hurts you to know this. It pains you."

Her siblings talked in the vision. Mosor said, "You're not empathetic. You've always made fun of us."

"I didn't mean to make you feel small," Kyofi said to herself.

Vanos said, "You're not full of Willpower. You back down as soon as the going gets rough, and your toughness gets going."

"I try," Kyofi said to herself.

Ahmond said, "Not hard enough." All three faded away, and Kyofi felt depression weighing in on her shoulders.

Outside the vision, Vanos tried touching the darkness. Then it enveloped him, and he saw the scene where they found out Ahmond disappeared. They had thought Mynt kidnapped her.

"The fear of the past," Lhyna said. Vanos saw Ahmond and ran towards her. More he ran, the farther she got. Almost like running towards a wall that always receded before he touched it.

Lhyna said, "You think your past is catching up with you, and it is." Mynt came up behind Vanos, and Vanos, in fear, ran.

He couldn't get close to Ahmond, who disappeared to a pinprick. But Mynt became bigger, and bigger, almost hundreds of feet tall.

Lhyna finally absorbed Ahmond into the darkness. Then Ahmond saw her friend, Lilu. The hyena said, "I guess you have to go now."

Ahmond blinked as she sat near the train tracks. "Fear of the future," Lhyna said. "Let's see how this plays out."

A train rushed by. "I think we'll be friends. I'll come back," Ahmond said. Lilu laughed wickedly. Ahmond took a few steps back.

"Like I would ever stay being friends with you." That was the last vision, until Lhyna could focus on Mosor.

Mosor saw herself alone in the darkness, knowing it trapped her other three friends. Lhyna appeared before her.

"Now as for you, little firefly, what are you afraid of? Not the past, present, or the future, right? Let's see what makes you nervous."

"You don't," Mosor said, and Lhyna blinked. The darkness wouldn't swallow Mosor. "I'm not backing down to some boogeyman."

Lhyna growled, and the darkness became less intense, as Mosor and her vines glowed. Her vines soon wrapped around the others, even if they couldn't see her yet.

"There's a light within me, that you can try to outshine, and maybe one day you will. There's a will you try to break, and maybe one day you will. There's someone dependable that eventually you'll render obsolete, but not today. Today we take our lives back, and you may have had us more than several days. You had us doing your bidding. I'm not going to be your fool anymore, instead I'm taking the treasures, and we're going to keep them to make sure Lantorn and you never see them."

Lhyna shook her head. This power wasn't going to stop, as Mosor saw Kyofi's shivering form, and Mosor placed a paw on her back. "You're not useless, and you're not alone." Kyofi shined bright blue and was relinquished of the hold.

Next was Vanos. "You're not standing alone against the family." A blue light saved him from the nightmares too.

She put a paw on Ahmond and said, "If you lose all your friends, you're not alone." She was released from the hold.

Lhyna growled at the four, confused. "How could you have broken my magics? You, you're unlocked some kind of power?" Her unprecedented actions bewildered Lhyna. "This is amazing," she said.

"You put someone with the empathy to understand others problems and fix them with someone who has the willpower to overcome any fear," Mosor said. "We amplify each other."

Ahmond, realizing something, said, "And we're dependable, too!" Her vines glowed, as did Vanos, and all three vines covered all four wolves.

Mosor stood in front of Lhyna. Despite Lhyna being two feet taller, she was small in power. "Back off."

From the vines, a glow shone, and consumed everybody. The Firefly Diary flipped open to the last page: Dependability.