“Daddy, you have to destroy Cole’s body, quick!”

“No, destroy hers!”

Mira shot up and wrapped around my arm, as she usually does, but Cole seemed to be having difficulties getting up. His movements were all a little too big, making him seem oddly lumbering and awkward.

“You saw the Wandering Dream entering her body, quick, destroy it!!”

I turned to Mira, asking, “What happened? Is Cole okay?”

Mira nodded cutely, answering, “I couldn’t figure out how to beat up the Elemental, so I just disconnected Cole from his body instead. He’s relaxing in my body right now, and I made him a blanket and a TV so he could watch what’s going on while we figure everything out.”

I chuckled, waving my hand to solidify Mirage around the Elemental inside of Cole’s body, so that it can’t escape. “What!!! Release Me!!! She’s the wandering dream, quick, you have to destroy her!!”

I rubbed the back of my head, responding, “Dude, every time you open your mouth, you’re just giving yourself away. First off, you can’t control your body right because this is the first time you’re possessing something. It took Mira hours to figure out how to do it, so it’s no surprise that you can’t immediately do it either. Secondly, Cole would never try to destroy Mira’s body, even in this situation. He’d try to figure out a way to banish the Elemental from Mira’s body first. Thirdly, you haven’t called either of us by our names, because you don’t know our names, because Cole’s memories aren’t stored in his body, they’re stored in a separate room. Fourth, you keep referring to yourself as ‘Wandering Dream’, which none of us have ever called you even once, we always refer to you as ‘the Dream Elemental’, or just ‘The Elemental’. And lastly…you’re not green.”

The Elemental inside of Cole’s body awkwardly yanked his head around to look at the various ShadowEaters floating throughout Ghostfire Mountain, all giving off a pale greenish light, and back over to Mira, who’s scales were the same shade of Lime. He then looked down at Cole’s hands, which looked the same as they always did, copper toned, without even the slightest hint of green. Giving up on its attempt to fool me, it tried to escape, Cole’s body turning into the same kind of formless fog that Mira had previously been.

“Oh, dang it, you can see me when I’m in Ghost Mode huh? All of my plans, they’re ruined!” Mira realized and despaired. Chuckling at her cute pouting, I stroked her head with my finger, saying:

“Well, how about we make it up to you. You want to be the one who eats the Elemental? After all, you earned it. I didn’t do jack shit, this is your win Mira.”

The light of greed and gluttony shone in Mira’s beautiful golden eyes, the shade of green tinting them seeming oddly fitting now. I used the full weight of Mirage itself to condense the cloudy form of the elemental, until it solidified into a solid bead, effectively trapping it inside its own body. Rather than killing it and absorbing the remnant Elemental Core, I had basically turned the Elemental itself into a living Elemental Core, which, yes, would technically be more risky, as it would be able to actively inflict soul damage on whomever eats it, however…Mira is built on my own soul, and my soul is one that has been constantly strengthened for years from the pressure of being connected to Desire’s Flame. No mere Elemental could possibly do anything to irrevocably harm such a soul.

Grinning, I tossed the bead into the air, Mira uncoiling from my arms and striking outwards, faster than the eye could see. Finally, the issue of the Elemental was resolved, and all we had left to do was cleanup. First thing first, I let go of the spell that I was continuously casting to dye my soul green, allowing everything around us to go back to its normal appearance. Though honestly…I kinda liked how the Fire Lilies looked when they were green. I might have to change that later, but right now I have more important things to do.

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After I fell asleep, we spent a few hours searching for the Elemental. Then, it took another hour or so to find Cole, and finally, another hour or so for Mira to save Cole’s mind. All in all, it’s been about 5 or 6 hours, and I only have a few more left before I wake up. I need to check up on Mira to make sure she’s okay, and learn more about why she can slip out of her body like that, I need to verify that the Elemental Core is safely situated inside of our soul, and I also need to make Cole a new body.

“Hey Mira, when were you planning on telling me that you can split your Mind from your Body?”

Mira seemed to be pouting a little as she answered, “I thought I’m invisible when I go Ghost Mode, and I wanted to use it to scare you, since you always know whenever anything’s around you. I needed to figure out how to move things first before I could scare you, but…” she sighed, as though relinquishing a long held dream of glory.

I laughed, and continued stroking her head. “Well do you experience any sort of problems with controlling your body? Are there any issues that I need to know about? I’m gonna have to make Cole in a way that he can do the same thing now, so I need to know if there’s anything that I have to do to fix the problems beforehand.”

Mira shook her head. “The only issue that I know about is when you’re first starting out, figuring out how to control your body is kinda weird. It’s kinda like…when you want to flap your wings, instead of just moving your wings, you’re pulling on a string that’s connected to your wings, you know? And when you go Ghost Mode, you don’t really have any eyes or ears, so it’s hard to know what exactly is around you, but somehow, you still know that there are in fact things around you? Kinda like that radar thing almost. But don’t worry, I’ll be here to show Cole all the ropes! You can leave it to me, I’ll be his teacher!!”

The adorable little dragon girl seemed to be extremely excited at the prospect of being in a position of power over Cole. I just laughed it off, and replied, “Yeah, be sure to take care of your little brother, alright?” Her body seemed to puff up in pride, and Mira nodded her head so aggressively, that her entire body seemed to turn into a whip, smacking her tail against my arm rather painfully.

I waved my hand and brought the pair of us, or I guess the three of us, since Cole was currently taking up residence inside of Mira’s body? Anyways, I brought us all to the Lab back home, and started working on Cole’s new body, asking Mira to relay any requests that Cole had. Apparently, Cole spends most of his time in the Black Cat form, and wanted to figure out how to control that body first, before dealing with the complications of switching bodies. I still made both, but I didn’t connect them to each other, and instead sent Cole’s Elvish Beastkin form to his room, so that when he’s ready, he can leave his black cat form, and practice with the humanoid one. Once he’s confident in his ability to properly control both, that’s when I’ll connect the two, and he can start practicing switching between them at will.

Once Cole’s black cat body was finished, Mira came over to it and opened her mouth, releasing a formless cloud over it. I know that she was just placing Cole’s mind directly on top of his body so that he doesn’t have to go searching for it, but still…it kinda looked like Mira was just vomiting all over her brother, hilarious in a disgusting sort of way. Cole seemed to sit in place for a moment, figuring out how to make and control the tendrils that I’d seen Mira making in this form, or ‘Ghost Mode’, as she calls it. Once he seemed to have figured it out, he then sent them into the body that I had prepared for him, slowly absorbing himself into it, until there was no more formless cloud to be seen.

After a moment, his eyes opened. In his old body, I’d made them to mix the light gray of Ash’s eyes, with the deep black of Xavier’s eyes, ending up with a dark, and stormy gray. However…his face, and his two bodies are already based on the pair of them, but Cole is MY son at the end of the day, and I wanted to give him something from me. And so, I gave him my eyes. The ones that burned away when I underwent the Baptism, brown with flecks of green.

He tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t seem to take his weight properly, and his paws were splayed outwards. If there was ever such a thing as a drunk cat, I think this is how it would move around.

“Jesus Christ, Mira, you live like this?!” Cole complained, trying to step forward with one leg, and completely crumbling down onto the table when he failed to use the other three to support his weight. He then turned his head to me, and said, “Dad…I-”

I just pet his head, making a shushing sound. “It’s okay. This is more my fault than yours. I should’ve realized that you two could be taken over before we split up. I should’ve set up a way for us all to communicate with each other beforehand, and I should’ve realized that you’d have had no way to protect yourself from it. This was all my fault, alright?”

Cole shook his head jerkily, responding, “No, I got careless. I had noticed something was weird in the room after I’d already left, then went back and reopened the door to double check. If I’d been paying close enough attention, and remembered how serious it was the first time, I’d have been safe. This was my fault.”

I chuckled, and said, “So at the end of the day, we both suck, and Mira’s the only one who can actually get things done in this family, huh?”

Cole laughed, maybe a little bitterly, and said, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“MUAH HAH HAAA!!! Know your place, peasants!!! For I am the Nightmare of the Skies, the White Dragon Who Devours Dreams, Tyrant Dragon Princess Mira!!! Bow your heads and Despair!!!”

Mira flew up, opening her golden wings and crowing to the sky above, as though trying to demonstrate her power and dignity, however…rather than regal and imposing, she was honestly just insanely adorable, but we had to play along. She was the hero of the day after all, she’s earned it. Cole and I snickered to each other silently, before bowing our heads, and replying,

“Yes, your majesty”