So tell us again why we can't just fly to meet ol' Mr. Oberstein," I asked Erikson.

"Who?" he asked surprised.

"Richard Oberstein, you know your boss?" I asked him.

"Oh that Mr. Obersteins?" he said back.

"Is there another one." I asked.

"Well, certainly not." He said back.

"So tell me why we can't just fly to meet Mr boss man if he has an assigment for his spiritual children." I told him.

"That would attract too much attention." Eriksson said with trepidation in his voice.

"What kind of attention?" I asked him nonchalantly.

"The wrong kind of attention from the wrong type of people, at the wrong time in the wrong place."

Eriksson said his mood returning to him.

"Specifically Who?" I asked.

"A real bad person, someone that I wouldn't want to deal with and you shouldn't want to deal with if you know what's good for you."

"So who?"I asked.

"Ever hear of the first Void General Phantasmagoria? Number Zero amongst their rank and not the type of person you want to deal with he could mess you up."

I looked at him.

"Mess you up good, in the head and in person, no mater what you won't be the same type of person after you mess with Phantasmagoria"

"So sounds like this person is definitely not someone to take lightly." Said Monroe even he had given in to the somberness of the situation.

"Sound's like a real buzz-kill" Said Monroe "Personally, I think he should just high tail it back to whatever void dimension he came from.

"So who is this Phantasmagoria?" responded Melanie.

"Right, I'm sure Mr. Eriksson was just getting to that." Said Michelle.

"So who is this Phantasmagoria you keep talking about?" I asked him.

"Phantasmagoria, number 0 in the rank of Void Chaos's men and representing the tarot card of the fool. He's the person responsible for summoning the dungeon that's connecting this world to the void and the one responsible for opening up all of the void portals." Eriksson told me.

"So tell me where this person or creature is so we can get strong enough to mess them up." I said.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"All you need to know is that Phantasmagoria is one of Void Chao's men and the reason that we're in this whole mess. And I don't think you could mess them up in your current predicament." Eriksson shot back.

"Try us." I said.

"If there's anybody who could do it it'd be us." Melanie said.

"Yeah, I'm upset about this Phantom-guy messing up my dinner date with you know who." Said Michelle.

"Well honestly, I can't wait to face off against the first boss. This Phantasmagoria character sounds like someone who's about to meet their match." Said Alex.

"..." Eriksson was at a lost for words at the enthusiasm to defeat one of Void chaos's men and so he thought to himself that

"So how strong is this Phantasmagoria?"

"Physically, he's the weakest of all of Void Chaos's men."

"That's great," I said "So let's go kick his ass for making Los Angeles look like Hellgate London."

"That said," Eriksson said "That's one of his strengths. You see Phantasmagoria doesn't really have a physical body that's not an illusion. It sure would be easier if they did."

"So what?" I asked him, "Does this mean that this Phantasmo-jerk is invulnerable."

"Precisely that. It means that you can't touch them." Said Eriksson. "Furthermore, the type of damage that he does is not limited to the physical." he said. "He deals mostly with emotional and mental damage."

"So it's not like we can just deal with the problem directly." I said summarizing what Eriksson had just said.

"Wish we could" said Eriksson.

"Well, yeah, I wish we could do so too."

"Phantasmagoria is someone that manipulates the mind of everyone that he sees friend and foe alike." Said Eriksson. "He's someone that even the void army has trouble dealing with and isn't very much liked even amongst their rank."

"That said you guys have way too many weaknesses to deal with Phantasmgoria. He'lll play you guys against each other like a fiddel very easily and convince you that he's your only ally in the damned world, and you know what by that point you'll be too damned brainwashed by him to tell that he's lying." Said Eriksson.

"This Phasmo person isn't going to tear us apart." Said Jacques. "Our ties of friendship and family are too strong for that and we'll overcome any challenge that he throws our way.

"Our friendship is too strong to be manipulated and we would never doubt each other." Said Monroe.

"Yeah we'll show them what for." Said Michelle.

"Yeah we'll do our best to defeat this Phantasmagoria fellow." Said Melanie.

"You here that we have an entire vote of confidence behind our backs and certainly we won't be the one to be fooled by this trickster."

"Trickster is definitely the word for Phantasmgoria, he styles himself after a Harlequin Doll, A Pierrot and he's a puppeteer that manipulates people with strings by showing them their worst nightmares come to life. It's hard sometimes to tell what's real and what's an illusion." Said Eriksson.

"You've dealt with this clown?" I asked Eriksson.

"Only once and I'm lucky to not have heard from him again. Once was more than enough for me." Said Eriksson. "He managed to turn my platoon of men all against each other by showing us our worst nightmares given flesh and so we all fought back and shot each other."

"That sounds bad." I told him.

"That's not the worIst of it either some of us decided to join Void Chao's ranks and be twisted into one of his demon generals thinking that would provide us salvation." Said Eriksson.

"The men who did that are completely gone, not a shred of their former selves remains all that's left of them are bloodthirsty monsters."

"So what we have on our hands is an IT, you know a omonster clown that terrorizes folks and gets them killed."

"I'd say Phantasmagoria is different than an IT." Said Jacques. "From what I'm hearing Phasmo- here loves toying with people and getting them to kill or otherwise corrupt them more than he wants to eat or kill their victims."

"Still, this Phasmo-guy seems likea real piece of work. I'm not scared of any clown though, if it were between me and him I would win for sure." Said Monroe.

"So how does he do all his mind manipulation?" Asked Alex "Surely,he can't do all of this while we're all still wide awake."

"He likes to enter dreams and manipulate people that way, trap them in their own dreams so when they wake they'll have created a waking nightmare." Said Eriksson.

"So let's fight this monster clown in our dreams then. I'll see if he can manipulate my dreams to such an extent that I can't fight back. They're my dreams afterall." I said

"You don't want to do, that" said Eriksson. "He's an expert at manipulating everyone's flaws."

"Yeah, and...?"Iasked.

"Just from obsering your group you don't seem to be the type without flaws. In fact, from our obseration you have many flaws that are just the type that Phantasmogoria likes to exploit." Said Eriksson.

I couldn't help but admit that our group certainly did have a lot of flawed people even though I certainly wasn't flawed. Lol, no. Of course I was flawed as well, everyone was and that was just the kind of thing that Phantasmgoria wanted to exploit.

"So let me get this straight, a monster clown from the void wants to trap us in our own nightmares, our own dream world and have us kill each other while he exploits our falws and has us kill each other?"

"Yeah," I agreed "Best to not attrat too much attention." Let's meet Mr. Oberstein on foot.