Despite his confident words to Wick, Randidly felt vaguely numb and tingling in this mental form. Whatever image the Commandant forcefully injected into him lingered even now, despite both Aether and Nether lashing out at the remnants.

In addition, some part of Randidly was deeply fascinated by the surroundings; his attention got tugged in every direction. All that he was, drawn-out around him a glittering, magical wonderland. His accomplishments became complex skyscrapers of energy and design. Of course, the small joy of examining himself quickly was smothered by the rather pressing issue of Wick.

Even with most of his emotional force lost by that pressure release, Wick still roared and barreled forward. The copper bottom had wheels and a large cage that covered a large, fleshy core area. Two massive and lidless eyes sat at the front of the fleshy portion, pressed right up against the copper frame. Strange pistons pumped between the biological mechanism and the metal, but those seemed mostly added detail. What mattered was the shuddering core of the train car-like amalgamation.

When the form of Wick met the form of Randidly Ghosthound in this place, they would grapple with each other directly. Looking at the train car accelerating toward him, Randidly didn’t think it could be avoided; the other presences had some power because they were literally inside of his body, but they were limited by the fact they weren’t actually him.

The true mental blows had to be struck by himself.

So the gathered Patrons and individuals from his Pantheon released blasts of their individual images that streaked and screamed across the intervening distance like fireworks. They tore holes in Wick’s vulnerable flesh engine and left him ragged. Yet their lights immediately dimmed and Wick continued forward, leaking a chunky and ooze-like version of blood onto the rippling black lake.

At the very least, Randidly thought, still somewhat lightheaded as he glanced down. The ooze sizzled and disintegrated as it touched the surface of the lake. Nether can safely rid my subconscious of that shit. As for Wick himself-

Next came Kharon, for the first time the Eidolon Crucible becoming a defensive force in Randidly’s body. It rushed forward to meet Wick, shrinking as it approached until all of the burning loyalty and bright spirits of Kharon condensed into a body the size of a minivan. This regal and brave image consciousness slammed directly into Wick’s sagging train engine without hesitation, ignoring the difference in potency between them.

Well, they probably don’t realize even I’m lacking compared to Wick.

Congratulations! Your Skill Reign of the Eidolon Crucible (L) has grown to Level 523!

Randidly winced in sympathy. The impact had enough force that the lake below carried a massive ripple out in every direction. Kharon skidded to a stop as a good third of the consciousnesses that composed it were dispersed. Most were probably knocked directly unconscious from the collision. Wick slowed its speed, but then began to drill his way through. The people of Kharon struggled, but they were simply overmatched, for the same reason that Randidly had been able to overwhelm them in the last conflict.

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Reign of the Eidolon Crucible (L) has grown to Level 562!

That’s enough, Randidly dispersed them before the population of Kharon hurt themselves further. The ‘lungs’ of the current Wick form, massive leathery bags contained within an especially tight copper mesh toward the back of the engine, inflated and deflated rapidly. Emotional force still leaked out from the left one. Yet Wick labored and skirted across the last few meters between them. Wick’s image form neared the point of breaking down.

The tingling was fading. Randidly sucked in a metaphorical breath and stirred his Nether.

But before he needed to engage directly, his images and one Authority lashed out at this rattling machine that seemed one solid hit away from collapsing. Yggdrasil unleashed the brilliant light of genesis, ripping the tear in Wick’s side even larger. The Stillborn Phoenix howled and manifested its most imperative devouring, warping the metal front of the engine into a twisted and crumpled ball, like discarded aluminum foil. The Grey Creature crashed itself directly against that front, reaching through with its sharp fingered right hand and shredding one of Wick’s large and unblinking eyes.

Then Nidhogg swam up from below and Seized the sight in the second eye. The pupil and iris vanished, leaving the blank white of the sclera. Wick roared again but didn’t waver. And somehow Randidly knew that he wouldn’t be able to dodge.

Wick’s image form coasted those last few meters, bleeding curry-colored clotted blood and more of its emotional force every second. It was a ragged and weakened being that Randidly needed to face. At this point, there were occasional flashes of other images in the space above the train engine, as though each was about to split from Wick’s body without Devick’s binding. Yet even now, Randidly didn’t dare underestimate Wick.

His final two guardians, the Unborn Duo, slithered forward. Their geometric mouths and uneven teeth gnawed on those unfurling image projections, ripping them out and swallowing them whole, using the leaking emotional force to slick their throats and go back for more.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 920!

Yet even with huge bites taken out of both the metal frame and the quivering fleshy core, Wick advanced. He arrived. The ripples spread out faster from Randidly’s feet, hinting at his quickening heartbeat. Even still with some vague splotches of oblivion within the depths of his overworked mind, Randidly reached out and engaged Wick proactively.

The surroundings blurred, everything outside of those two forms falling away. Suddenly it felt as though Randidly stood before a towering form a jelly, filled with rage and hatred and memories and habits and the whole sloppy truth of Wick. He felt the uneven layers and the abrupt contradictions, packed into a small area. Being here before that horrifying being let him feel how jumbled and chaotic a person was.

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Randidly distantly wondered whether this sort of haphazard personality arrangement was common, or simply reflected the hellish existence that Wick endured.

That jelly being collapsed onto him, pressing the essence of him into the essence of Randidly. To his horror, he became abruptly aware of his own jelly form, the indivisible fractions of his “Self” turning out to be remarkably layered and separable as Wick applied pressure on him. And that heavy, digging Willpower of Wick that continued to churn and scrape its way in, despite all the attacks he had suffered-

Nether flared up from below, running along the familiar lines of ‘Randidly Ghosthound’. Wick shrieked and withered in all but the most core locations, as the jelly was fried by the flows of significance. Both seemed to realize that Wick’s jelly form had no foundation in this place and Randidly’s Nether Core became a furnace of righteous indignation, burning away the invasion.

Wick shifted and tightened, squeezing Randidly like a boa constrictor. It seemed that rather than invading and risk other portions of himself burning away, he would pressure Randidly until his personality popped underneath the strain. Perhaps the ruptured result would be more agreeable to Wick than the current regime.

However, flames of Nether Weight sprung up across Randidly’s self, giving him that extra edge. Feeling his self tingling and flaring chaotic, Randidly used that extra power to force away Wick. The other’s Willpower still could overwhelm him directly, but he could endure with the support of Nether.

Yet always Wick adjusted, lashing out in new ways to take him by surprise.

The strain became the whole of Randidly’s experience. He understood nothing outside of the horrifying blurring at his edges, struggling and rejecting with as much vehemence as he could. Space and truth vanished, leaving a frightfully subjective battlefield of seemingly irrelevant details. Because while he preserved the core of himself, Randidly couldn't claim that Wick’s offensive bore no fruit.

Obviously, he remembered he wasn’t Wick’s son, but what exactly was his position in Military High Command? How did he meet Lady Iellaya? What was the face of the first man that Randidly killed? Had he ever truly loved someone?

Was he the reason that Helen had died? Because in several ways, he really-

No. Randidly felt himself tremble. Something dark and vicious oozed out of his heart that seared his inner world with its hatred. Helen…!

In this exotic struggle, the vague questions became increasingly sinister as new, unfamiliar answers crept into his mind. And considering how numb and bleary Randidly felt, it was difficult to decide what he absorbed from Wick and what he forgot. The fury he felt became one of the few truths to which he could affix himself.

And yet. And yet-!

He was only a mental form, but he felt himself weeping. Nether burned through Randidly in periodic flares, eating away at the antagonist on top of him. The Nether Core continued to spin, grounding him in what things were significant.

Wick seemed to realize where this fight was going much more quickly than Randidly, because he once more attempted to invade the core of the layered jellies that signified Randidly. Again and again Nether ripped through these invasions, these snippets of self that Wick forced into Randidly to try and pry him open. Each attempt was increasingly desperate, as Wick clearly intended to get some leverage and rip Randidly up away from his connection to his Nether Core.

Or perhaps his goal was to take the Nether Core for himself and burn Randidly to ash.

Either way, significance whooshed through Randidly’s Nether Core, strengthening it. In that way, it was clear that Wick succeeded at least partially; some portion of Wick became a part of Randidly. But Randidly had a feeling that he got the better end of the deal.

Heat and toil, they warped time until the struggle seemed an eternity. His confusion grew. And strangely, Randidly found the sensation oddly reassuring; it reminded him of using the Visage of Obsession.

In those unconscious moments, he stopped wondering what was happening. He simply threw himself into the work. Wicks attacks were steadily repulsed.

Abruptly, Randidly was free. The jelly form of Wick sloughed off him, dropping and curling like dead snakeskin. Weak and scorched by Nether, the whole of Wick collapsed onto the ground. Little bits of him remained around, twitching.

The mental connection vanished. Even in the subconscious, contact was broken. Randidly found himself standing before the sagging and melting remnants of that train engine. Blank white circles were pointed right at him, but they resemble tiny plates more than eyes. After surreptitiously prodding it to see if it yet lived, the Unborn began to nibble on the remaining fleshy bits.

Congratulations! Your Skill Twin Lingering Shadows of Misfortune (T) has grown to Level 924!

Then they were back in that demolished courtroom. Randidly looked up at Wick's hairy and blank face before the Commandant collapsed backward onto his ass. Randidly stood quickly and then cursed himself as he swayed. His head was still light. He coughed up and spat out a glob of discolored blood.

“You…” Wick’s voice wheezed out. He appeared to have regained some clarity because he managed a glare at Randidly. “Fuck… you.”

A last and fitting expression of Wick’s disdain for Randidly.

For a split second, something ugly rose in Randidly’s heart. He felt anticipation and relish for the moment where he paid back this sadistic piece of shit for every iota of pain he had inflicted on Helen. He would lay him open and then thoroughly eviscerate the shattered remnants of his image, feeding the scattered and rotting chunks to the Unborn before Wick’s eyes. Then he would break his bones, rip out his veins, and weave a tapestry from his flayed organs. For what he did to Helen, Wick would feel regret.

Yet the experience quickly turned sour as he ran through his planned vengeance. His dominant emotion was black and suffocating, a constriction sensation of being short on oxygen after a long run. Yet panic drove him to move, even weak as he was. His hands rose almost unbidden, leveling Acri at Wick’s chest even through the lightheadedness.

Randidly swayed. Pawing like a child in the dark, he sorted his way through his own emotions.

It was one of the hardest things he had ever done to lower his spear. The black panic of rage and confusion squeezed his heart. The desire for vengeance pounded through him, near deafening. Randidly sucked in a breath. It would have been easy to blame Wick for this strange emotional affliction, label it as some lingering remnant of the other that was lodged inside of jelly-Randidly.

But even if that was partially true, it wasn’t the whole truth.

“We actually aren’t so different,” Randidly whispered. He ached to say those words; that was the seed that had grown that black emotion. And bringing it to light forced the cloying hatred to wither. “We were both… shaped purposefully by callous and selfish individuals. We both so desperately want power. We ended up relying on those twisted benefactors to grow. The real difference… is the choices we’ve made since then.”

Yet maybe that’s not fair to you. Randidly couldn’t say that thought out loud. Maybe the real difference was the environment.

Randidly pressed his eyes shut and tried to steady himself. He felt so exhausted. He felt like he would fail Helen by not slaughtering Wick with just as much prejudice as he had shown for her. But Randidly found himself intending to let Wick live. Which, in its own way, was a twisted revenge. Because even now, he could feel those other images lurking beneath his skin, beginning to move and morph. The weakened Wick would likely spend a lot of time tortured by his demons before he left this life.

It was hard not to enjoy that thought. But also, he tried not to let himself dwell on it.