We had walked several miles away from the clearing, moving further deep into the woods until Pisces suggested we stop, coming to a halt where the trees were shorter and the undergrowth less but boulders and huge rocks rid the land.

On the way, Pisces had been engaging me in Zodiac lore as my curious brain fired question after question.

". . .Everyone has a different power that matches their cosmic life force," she was saying, "you met Pollux and witnessed her ability to self-replicate into whatever she wills herself to become."

"A shape shifter," I said comically, "she was lovely."

"Her power allows her to imitate any of our abilities, making her extremely dangerous."

"So, she could've easily turned into, hmm," I frowned, going back to all the Zodiac that Pisces had mentioned, "someone like—"

"It only works if the Zodiac is in her field of vision," Pisces cut in, realizing where I was going with that.

"Huh," I nodded, "makes sense. Such power needs to have its limits." I wanted to ask more about the Zodiac and their relations with each other.

"If we're going to stop them," Pisces said, cutting off my question, "you'll need to be ready to face them. We could talk about them all day but it won't matter."

"Still waiting on the answer of how exactly we're gonna do the stopping," I said, giving up on exploring that topic.

Pisces wheeled around, her crystalline gown sweeping the ground. "You bear the mark of Sage—one of the strongest of all of us."

"It was almost impossible beating one Zodiac, how is my weak human form gonna take on ten more of these guys?"

"It's six," Pisces corrected.

"Oh, my bad," I chuckled sarcastically, "it's only six, sure, let's take 'em on."

Pisces threw me a furtive glance and I wished I had kept my big mouth shut. "There were twelve of our kind during the birth of our existence." she said, "Two of whom are no longer with us. . .the rest serve the one who decided to make himself Alpha, the one we need to stop—Aries."

I caught the resentment with which Pisces mentioned that name.

"That's who you need to focus on," Pisces said, the bitterness in her tone rising. "The others are merely pawns for his plan; mindless souls controlled by their own fear of him."

"Over the years," Pisces went on, "after Sage was gone, the others have been losing their way and Aries made sure to exploit this."

"But not you," I muttered.

"This is the only chance we have, Desmond. No one knows the Zodiac like I do." Pisces let waves of blue energy glide around her arms. "And I'll teach you their ways by making you become one."

"Say what now?" I gasped.

"Would you quit thinking about centaurs!" Pisces snapped, probing my mind again, "I'm not going to turn you into a centaur."

I exhaled with a mixture of relief and embarrassment.

"I'm going to teach you how to harness the abilities of Sage so you can use his power as your own," she pointed at the arrow symbol.

"Okay," I swallowed, "where do we start?"

"First, we need to establish your connection with his power," Pisces said.

"Seems pretty tight to me," I raised my emblazoned arm, "I've got a freaking magic tattoo!"

"But can you use it?"

I understood what she was saying.

"I need you to summon Sage's power," Pisces said shortly.

I nodded, getting lost but the way Pisces was looking at me had me snapping out of my thoughts. Man, she had to quit it with that. "You mean now?"

"Mhmm," Pisces took a step back, "now get into position."

"Wait, what do you mean?" I asked, watching Pisces get into an attacking stance with her palms spread out in front of her.

"What are you doing?" I asked, getting nervous.

"I'm going to come at you," her eyes glowed brighter as well as her gown, with blue spheres of energy dancing around her palms.

"No, you're not," I said quickly, already getting out of the way.

"Yes, you are!" without warning, I felt my body become weightless and my ass was on the ground in seconds.

"Hey!" I lamented, "not cool."

"Get up!" Pisces ordered.

"No," I retorted, trying to sound tough and Pisces responded by using her abilities to bring me back on my feet.

"You need to react," Pisces persisted.

"That's what I'm doing! Trying to run away from you!"

Pisces huffed in annoyance, getting out of her attacking position. "Do you want to go home or not?"

"'Course I do," I replied irritably.

"Then you need to man up, Desmond Arttigiauss Turner!" Pisces barked, her face as hard as stone.

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"How do you know my full—"

Ouff! The wind was knocked out of me and I was down on my ass again. "Would you cut that out?"

"Get up!" Pisces ordered and I did not wait to be magically pulled back up.

"You're really starting to get on my nerves, you know," I said, showing Pisces I was not at all pleased with her new attitude. "This is dodgeball all over again."

"That's right," Pisces smiled so wickedly, had I not been mad at her, I would have been terrified. "Get angry," she added.

"First of all," I raised a finger in the air, "telling me to man up, that was rude and uncalled for. You're not even—oh no! What are you doing?" I wailed, staring at my index finger. It was swirling and spiraling like a piece of cloth being wrung. "Stop that!"

"React!"

"I am!"

"Ugh," Pisces shook her head and before I could open my mouth again to try and stop her from throwing me back to the ground, well, I was down on the ground.

I frantically looked at my finger. It was back to normal. I glared at Pisces. "What kind of training is this? Are you trying to kill me?"

"No," she levelled, "but the others will. Now, get up!"

Oh, that was it. I had had it with her.

Infuriated, I got up. "Alright then," I balled my fingers into fists, "I gotta warn you though, just because you're a woman or a female Zodiac or however you people identify—"

I was down. Again.

"Stop talking and react," were the words that kept passing through my ears with every hit I took.

"We're not stopping until you summon his power by will," Pisces readied herself for another attack.

She charged, flinging me into the air yet again before slamming me face first back to the ground.

"That's. . ." I spat out dirt from my mouth, ". . .it!" I got up again, having grown tired of being a human punching bag, balloon, whatever—Pisces's powers was so mind boggling.

"You ready to react yet?" Pisces taunted.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" I asked, trying my best not to clench my teeth in frustration just as my arrow symbol started to act up by glitching.

I felt that overwhelming sense of power. A kind of exhilaration and Pisces seemed to catch on that as she smiled at me, "Okay, we're starting to get somewhere."

I let the feeling take over me. I let myself feel the dread of walking into danger like I had done before with the pitchfork.

Pisces charged again. She cast her telekinetic mojo at me but I was ready this time. I extended my right arm and I could see the insignia was steadily glowing. I willed myself to fight against Pisces's power and I was surprised to find it actually worked. Pisces appeared to be significantly struggling in trying to unleash her power. I held her down but I could still feel the effect of her power, furiously trying to lift me off the ground.

I steadied my arm and the insignia continued to glow, casting a neon green hue all over me. I even started to slowly overpower Pisces, advancing towards her, forcing her to take several steps back. I kept on pushing until we had made it to the river bed.

I could feel Sage's power intensify, matching the brightness of his insignia up to a point I could not contain it anymore. This resulted in a huge blast, followed with the terrific release of immense amounts of energy, knocking Pisces clean off the ground.

By the time the blast had died down, I was already rejoicing, fist-pumping the air victoriously. "Oh yeah! That's what I'm talking about!"

"There's my reaction!" I yelled hysterically but my cries of joy immediately turned into panic.

Pisces had been thrown several feet away. She was lying on her back at the edge of the river bank. She was not moving.

"Pisces! Pisces!" I called, trying not to dread the worst as I rushed over to her side.

"Hey, can you hear me?" I called, crouching next to her, "come on, wake up!"

I could not spot any visible injuries on her. This could not be happening. I was reaching out for her hand but something else found my face first. I was struck by something wet and heavy, causing me to flip sideways before landing face-first into dirt.

Groaning, I raised my head to find Pisces beaming down at me. "Today's lesson—be weary of your enemy's surprise attacks."

"Please never do that again," I got back up, dusting myself off.

"Did you just hit me with water?" I asked, feeling my wet jaw and just in time to catch large ripples of water dissolving and vanishing into Pisces's arms.

"Well done," Pisces remarked, sounding impressed. She was looking at my arm which was still aglow with the insignia. "See, all you needed was a little push."

"A little push?" I tried ignoring the pain in my jaw, "you hit me with water. And it hurt!"

"Quit whining," Pisces rolled her eyes, "you'll be fine in minutes. I don't even need to heal you."

I shook my head in disbelief and Pisces widened her smile. I smiled back. I don't know why I liked to see her smile. She always seemed like she had a lot on her mind and that she had been through a lot. Maybe this was another reason why Sage had put me in her path. So that I could. . .okay, enough of that. I quickly shifted my thoughts, afraid Pisces would read my mind again. She kept on smiling, meaning she didn't. Or had she? Ugh! Now I wished I could read minds.

"We're now one step closer to ending all of this," she said, her smile now gone but she did not seem as set as before. Her face was calm and relaxed. "Soon, Aries will face judgement." the last statement, however, came out with a lot of weight.

We sat against a huge boulder that stood over the river bank. There was a light gale blowing through the trees and I caught a flying squirrel soar over a branch before disappearing deep into the forest. I turned my attention to Pisces. She always seemed to have that distant look on her face and I joined her in the silence, which could only last for so long for someone like me.

"Aries," I started, getting Pisces's attention, "is the one who. . ." I stopped, now regretting why I had chosen this as a conversation starter but Pisces had already caught my question.

"Yes," she responded, "he killed Sage. . .in front of me."

I swallowed, having not so long ago witnessed someone losing their life as I watched and being unable to do anything about it. I turned away, knowing all too well words like sorry just never worked in situations like those.

Pisces seemed to feel my uneasiness more than I myself could. It was like back when she had healed me after Pollux's attack. Could she feel my pain, literally? She directed me towards Despyon's shield which I had propped next to one of the boulders.

"He's still around, you know," she said.

"What?" I asked, not getting her the first time.

"Your friend whose face you wear."

I gulped, wondering for how long had Pisces known about that.

"I can sense his mind, lost across the plane of existence."

That didn't sound so good.

"But he's okay," Pisces said.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Sage put him there," was her response, making it sound as if it was enough to justify it was a good idea to literally trap somebody's consciousness inside a freaking shield and have someone else take over their physical form.

"You people operate in mysterious ways," I sighed, making Pisces smile again. I guess I was handling all this pretty well. For the first time in a while, I was actually feeling just a tiny bit better.

"Well, well," a new voice suddenly cut in, startling both Pisces and me.

I turned my head either way but I could not see anyone.

Pisces appeared to quickly regain her composure and it seemed as if she was aware of what was going on after she got up and lightly lifted herself off of the boulder and landed softly on the ground below.

"If it isn't the runaway and her new pet," the voice came again, almost as low as a whisper.

"Can you see her?" Pisces asked me, to which I replied, "What? See who?"

Shaking her head with a disappointed frown on her face, as if she had expected a different answer, Pisces turned to the open space before her.

"Reveal yourself!" she ordered while I watched safely from the boulder, if that could even count as being safe.

There was a long invisible sigh that was soon followed by a whirring sound and something then materialized in front of Pisces. I watched, totally bewildered as a figure slowly took form until it became physical and entirely visible.

"What do you want, Zygos?" Pisces asked, sighing in annoyance.

I didn't quite catch that, but that's what I heard Pisces call the figure. It appeared feminine and I could not clearly see its face as it was concealed under a long cloak.

"Oh, you know me—I'm just here to. . . tip the scales. . ." the figure uttered and from that, I could tell more trouble was coming my way.