Ben finished getting dressed while his computer booted up. It was more out of habit to turn it on, and check his e-mail, even though he didn't really have time to before he left for work. Eirik, Ryan, and Robb were all still asleep on their bunks, and the room was quiet for once.

As he finished lacing up his black formal shoes, he sat down long enough to see that he had received nothing but junk mail in his inbox. Ben turned off the monitor, momentarily pondering if he should shut down the whole computer, less Robb, or Eirik, or Greg decided to use it today. But he just didn't care.

Ben threw on his coat and headed out the front door. It was going to be a beautiful Sunday after last night's storm, and he was going to be stuck in the mall selling electronic equipment to people for most of it. At least he got off work today at 5:30 instead of 7:00

"Him?" She asked

"Him." She nodded.

"Him!" She laughed.

The three sisters conversed over the wide gap that lay between them. Ophelia deep in the northern forest of UCSC. Cordelia stalking around the roof of Bay Tree Bookstore. Miranda dancing through the Kresge College woods.

The time had come to begin it. If all went well, the battle would end and many of the damaging ones would be eliminated. If it went wrong, the war would have begun, but hell would be that much closer to being let loose.

Ryan flipped the towels off his shoulder and onto the hook on the back of the shower stall door. He removed his bracelet and placed it on one of the knobs on the wall. His vision blurred suddenly, and his head filled with women's voices chanting 'Him'

He clenched his eyes shut as his breathing increased. He opened his eyes again, and looked at his hand, pressed flat against the tile wall. He could see properly and the voices had stopped.

… at least in his head.

"And then I'll have… hmm…" Danielle said, surveying the menu. She fingers drummed the top of her wallet, pressed to the counter underneath her hand. "No, I think that's all I want."

The woman on the other side of the counter told her how much her order cost, and Danielle forked over the cash. While she waited, she thought about how badly this weekend was going. She had driven all the way to Sacramento with her friend, and was getting to spend no time with her. Plus, finals started Monday morning, and she wasn't studying. A tray of food appeared in front of her.

Danielle took the tray and turned around to find a table in the crowded Wendy's. But all the voices suddenly stopped. The store was instead a massive field. The sky above was black, but devoid of stars. Instead, a thin line of clouds moved in an endless spiral overhead. In the middle of the field stood the Twisted Sisters, standing and chanting.

"You must get back there fast, or this vision shall be your future!"

Danielle startled as she looked down into the face of a young child standing next to her, looking up. Below the girl, the tiles of the fast food floor had yet to transform into dead brown grass.

The girl had blonde hair that fell very straight around her head. Her eyes were pale blue, almost white, as pale as her skin. Her clothes were simply gray cloth, and her shoes were brown leather. A medallion with strange symbols hung around her neck.

"Who are you?" Danielle asked. But the girl didn't seem to hear her.

"Go back there. Now! They are going after him. The others need your help."

"Maam?" came a man's voice, shattering the strange vision. Danielle looked up at the man who was standing behind her in line. She apologized and walked over to a table. Sitting down, she ignored her food as she immediately pulled out her cell phone.

"A whole day, wasted!" Ryan said as the group walked out from the dining hall. "Instead of doing my paper, I took a shower, and then played video games for hours."

"Well I slept all afternoon, real productive," Lucy adds. "Plus, it's the full moon again on Monday, which means I have to stay inside out of the light…"

"Again?" Eirik says, rubbing her hand. "Is it just me, or have we been getting more of those lately?" Lucy shrugged.

"So what do you guys want to do tonight…" Greg asked.

"I don't know, watch some Buffy?" Eirik said, clapping his hands in realization "Oooh! We're up to the season 2 finale!"

"Oooh yeah!" Lucy cheered. "Lets do that! It'll keep me safe and- Ryan? Are you okay?"

Ryan had paused on the steps leading from the Cowell mailroom to the fountain. He was panting.

"Yeah…" Ryan said, looking straight ahead at Eirik. His eyes moved in their sockets in the direction of Greg. Eirik seemed to catch on. "… just feeling a little dizzy."

"Oh… Oh! Okay, lets get back to the room then." Ryan righted himself, the voices in his head quieting themselves. He finished his decent of the stairs as they continued on towards the fountain.

Ben pulled into the space near the small opening in the fence in East Remote Parking Lot. The car's engine shut off and he stepped out of the car.

He let out a deep breath. The incident at work had really taken it out of him. If Sandy hadn't have snuck up on him… then nothing would have happened. No exploding fridge, no fire department, no questions, none of it. Now he had to quickly get up to his room to change and get ready to head to his new job beta testing. Hopefully he wouldn't be responsible for blowing up expensive computer equipment.

He let out another deep sign again as he began to shut his door. He stopped mid shove as he noticed a figure moving through the grass field just outside the parking lot.

She was about his height, wearing a green leather skirt and a green leather blouse. Her skin was very tan, and her hair was fiery red. She floated above the grass, and turned her head slightly. As her eyes locked onto Ben's she gave a half smile and moved off into the distance.

"Damnit," he said, recognizing her as one of the three witches. "No time to get the others, guess I'll just have to deal with this solo." Ben pulled open the car door and reached under the driver seat. His hand brought out with it a holster with a his heavy gun. He had left it in his car weeks ago when he had been working on it at work.

The door slammed shut as he rushed forward. His left hand clicked the lock button on his key ring. The car's headlights flicked on for a moment, hitting Miranda on the back. The witch turned and smiled with a deranged look of pleasure dancing in her eyes.

"Finally." The word barely escaped on her breath. Around her hands, bright orbs of green and yellow fire burst into existence. She hurled one of these at Ben.

"Woah!" he yelled, narrowly dodging into the grass as the fireball shot past him. He quickly got to one knee and fired off the gun at her. She held up her hands and caught the ball of black lightning.

"Fancy! A ball of gravity. Here! Catch!" She pulled her arm back like a pitcher and hurled the tiny controlled quantum singularity at Ben. He tried to dodge, but her shot was a fastball that hit too soon. He fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

"All yours," the green witch whispered as she vanished in a swirl of leaves her body produced.

Ben groaned under the weight of his own attack, but couldn't handle it. He passed out before the surge of energy dissipated.

"I hope Cordelia is right about this one…" The clouds were already rolling in up the hill onto the campus. Ophelia stepped out of this fluidly, as if her very corporeal being were constructed from the clouds. She dress shuffled along the ground as if she were walking, but her movements were so graceful, her feet could never have touched the ground once.

She kneeled when she reached Ben. Her hand slowly reached for his head. The white witch's fingers made a quick snapping motion in the air and lifted slowly. Like a puppet on a string, a single strand of hair on Ben's head lifted up. Ophelia jerked hard and the hair imitated the motion, yanking the hair from its follicle. Surrounded by an aura of light, the hair followed her deeper into the meadow.

Ophelia's 'free' hand motioned towards the ground. It swished and swirled back and forth, calmly and methodically. Lines of light formed into a large circle, circumscribed around a series of Japanese kanji characters. At the four compass points, a ball of blue fire lit up.

A child's laugh filled the air as the symbol burst into flame and collected together into a mass taking form. Four yellow-white paws touched down onto the burnt grass and soil. The large fox looked up at Ophelia and blinked in shock before turning to run away.

"Kitsune, I summoned you, you cannot leave!!" Ophelia declared.

The fox tried to run, but a ring of light held the fox spirit in place. Its eyes turned and glared into Ophelia's as it growled.

"Don't give me that. It will do you know good." Ophelia's eyes lit up solid white in return. The fox backed down. "I have a purpose for you. And you will abide by it. Your race bears my symbol, a debt you and our brother owe us. Now take this hair. Assume its identity. While we take care of its owner." The hair flew through the air and the Kitsune leapt, catching it in its mouth.

The Kitsune closed its eyes and bowed its head. The long shimmering tail waved back and forth in the air slowly as an aura of light surrounded the creature. Suddenly, the tip of the tail burst into flames, flames that quickly spread down the animal's fur, engulfing it in white fire. The fire metamorphosised from four legged fox into a two legged human: A perfect replication of Ben, down to the black suit jacket, and heavy gun.

"Excellent. Now go, before they worry about your being late."

"It wouldn't be a first," Fox Ben laughed, beginning to feel the knowledge of Ben's memories seep into him. He walked off towards the path that led to the East Field House.

"As for you…" Ophelia said, returning her attention to Ben. She waved her hand over him once, and he dissolved away into smoke. Smiling contentedly, Ophelia returned to the fog.

"So I can move into my new room on Wednesday or Thursday if I want to!" Lucy said happily as she wrapped herself up in the white comforter on the couch.

"Alright!" Eirik said.

"Have you talked to them yet?" Ryan asked.

"Not yet," Lucy answered, her pony tail wagging behind her head. "I'm going to go down tomorrow."

"Honey that's such great news I-" Eirik stopped and grabbed his head.

"Eirik, what is it?"

"I- Something. Head hurt… Out in the-" Eirik cut himself off, looking at Greg.

"You guys sure are acting strange tonight…" Greg says, shaking his head and looking away. As he turns his head, Eirik turns to Ryan wide eyed and nodding. He begins to point out the window, in the direction of east remote parking lot, then stops.

"Wait, its gone."

"What is?" Greg asks.

"The- uh, headache."

"Wow, fast headache, we didn't have to do anything at all," Ryan half laughs.

"What are you talking about? What would you be able to do for his headache?" Greg blurts, confounded. "Whatever, I'm going back up to my room then. Have Ben get me when he gets back." Greg picked up his jacket, and walked out the door.

As soon as the heavy brown opening clanged shut, Ryan and Lucy turned on Eirik.

"So what happened?" Ryan asked quickly.

"Demon! Or something. I couldn't get an id on it. It was too far off. I think it was over by the parking lot," Eirik replied, pointing again over his shoulder. "Then it just vanished, as quickly as it came!"

"That's weird-" Lucy began to say. But the door opened and they immediately shut up.

But it was just Ben.

"Oh good, just you," Eirik sighed with relief.

"Hey guys…" Ben said, a little unsure of himself. He walked over to the green gymnastiball, sitting near Eirik's corner of the room, and sat down, watching the black tv screen. No one had shut it off since the Buffy DVD had ended.

"So do you think we should go investigate it?" Ryan asked.

"No… I'm not getting anything now. So it was probably nothing… maybe a quick glimpse of some parallel world or something. "

"What's up guys?" Ben asked.

"Oh, just Eirik getting weird head vibes," Ryan said. As he looked at Ben, he couldn't help but think his eyes looked really strange. But he passed it off as nothing as the group decided to watch another episode of Buffy on DVD.

Ben, the real Ben, awoke with a splitting headache. His ears were ringing, and his temples were throbbing. Groaning he pushed himself up off of the hard packed earth, dirt smeared all down his dress shirt.

He lifted his head and opened his eyes.

"Boo!" Cordelia shouted as she looked straight at him, only a foot away from his face.

Ben screamed and Cordelia lifted his hand, catching a ball of fire in it.

"My, that is quite the odd little shadow you've got there, my little chicken," the crone giggled. Ben stood up quickly and began to back away towards the deserted parking lot. Cordelia continued to laugh as she tossed the ball of flame back and forth between her hands. "Aww, why are you trying to run away?"

"Cause you and your sisters have been trying to kill me all year long!"

"Oh, we don't want to kill you… but we have to!" She paused, and her one visible eye seemed to shimmer for a moment. "Well, we don't actually have to kill you… In fact, there is something you could do for me, that would make all of this go away! My sisters would leave, you wouldn't have to worry about blowing things up anymore, all your troubles… poof! Gone!" She clapped, extinguishing the fire.

"Yeah, right!" Ben exclaimed, the pitch of his voice rising. "There's some catch! Something really bad."

"No catch. All I ask is that you let me remove your shadow! Without it, you are no longer a problem to us! You couldn't go to PCSC anymore… but we wouldn't have to kill you."

The concept hit Ben hard. No more risking death. No more risking blowing stuff up. And if he said yes, he wouldn't be alone. Lucy had already decided to stop going to the other world. What could this hurt? He might as well accept the offer! But then he realized that this seemed wrong. What about the others who still had shadows… they'd still be risking death, and he'd be abandoning them, and would loose the power to use phase weapons. He gritted his teeth and answered.

"No. I wont accept your terms."

"HA! Too late. For a fraction of a second. You did! And that's good enough for me." The old witch opened up her hands, and the fire re-ignited. "The fire inside burns so deep. But the soul unjust doth keep. Magic ensnare, this little goose. Fan the flame, then rip it loose!" As she spoke, she fanned her hands. The fire grew brighter and larger, into a sizeable tongue of white flame. With her final words, she pushed the air, sending the ball smashing into Ben, who had begun to glow.

The fire seemed to engulf Ben from the inside out. It wrapped around him, but did not touch him to burn. Once he was fully surrounded, the flames leapt off of him and shot far away into the night. Ben collapsed to his knees, suddenly feeling very drained.

"It is done, my duck." Cordelia clucked again, and then dissolved away into thick smoke that crawled away along the ground.

Ben caught his breath, stood up, blinked a few dozen times, and then slowly set off for the dorms feeling strangely hollow.

Ben jumped up in exclamation as Ryan's virtual character fell into the bottomless abyss of clouds on the video screen.

"Aww that sucks!" he shouted.

Eirik looked up from the pile of school books in front of him, taking a break in his studying just long enough to wonder why Ben hadn't even gone and sat down at his computer yet this evening.

As Eirik thought this, Ben promptly stood up and walked over to his desk, smiling and nodding at Eirik.

Eirik contemplated walking over to his own computer and sending Ryan an Instant Message on-line so the two friends could exchange conspiracy theories about Ben's behavior, but decided that this paranoia was merely a result of nearly four years of twisted supernatural events in his life, and had no basis in reality.

And then he was distracted by the video game again, as Ryan's character missed a grapple hook swing and plunged into the water, and was eaten by a mutant fish.

"That's odd…" Ben said. "My computer just shut down Counterstrike and logged onto Instant Messenger while I had my back turned!"

"That is strange," Ryan replied, not noticing his reborn character was getting attacked by dog monsters. He turned his head and grumbled at his horrid luck with this game tonight.

Ben found his way back to Cowell, and marched past the construction site. He was amazed to see the vehicles all missing. He entered the lower quad of dorm buildings, and marched across the grass, noting that the tree in front of Beard House was missing, as was the glass door to his dorm building of last year. From one of the balconies of Turner house on his right, a massive searchlight shone down on him.

But the thing that most caught his attention was the silence. Everything was totally devoid of sound. There were no voices of people. No sound from the fountain just up the long flight of stairs. There wasn't even wind in the air. Everything was simply dead.

Ben decided that something more was up to the witches tricks than simply removing his powers from him. And he did honestly believe his powers were gone. He even tried firing his heavy gun, but found it did nothing. Even still, he brandished it openly, in case something did surprise him. At least it would create the illusion that he posed a threat.

He entered Morrison building and ascended the staircase. All the posters had been removed from the walls and the doors to each hallway now had massive locks on them. All except the one to his floor, that door was wide open. He stepped down the hallway and pushed open the door to the guy's quad, propped open with a pen.

The lights were on in the room, as was his computer. But the monitor was on, and loaded up to play counterstrike. Robb must have been using it today, as he hoped he wouldn't.

Robb walked over to his fridge behind Eirik's desk and pulled open the door. He reached out the water pitcher, and poured a glass of water. The sound of water pouring was almost deafening in the still air that pervaded everything.

"What is going on?" he said to himself, before deciding to not drink the water, for fear of what it could hold.

He sat down at his computer and tried to log onto his instant messenger program. No luck. He couldn't get on-line. He entered the password again and hit enter, but didn't wait for the results… because he finally heard something.

It sounded like a far off humming sound. It steadily grew louder and louder, and almost shook the building. Involuntarily, Ben felt himself shaking to the incredibly fast rhythm. Soon he recognized the noise. It was buzzing. It was the drone of wings. Insect wings. And large ones by the sound of it.

He flung open his desk drawer and yanked out his regular phase blaster, sword and his OCX goggles. Maybe one of them could still work for him. Ben primed the gun just in time to see the Plexiglas door to the balcony, and the curtains blocking them, shatter and spray into the room as a creature flew into them.

Ben unshielded his eyes and looked at the intruder. He was six feet in height with a slim build. His legs were pressed together with his feet angled towards the ground. His face held a judgmental glare as he surveyed Ben. His chest was bare, and he wore khaki pants and black shoes. If he hadn't been floating, he could pass for a normal human.

That is if, of course, if he didn't look just like Ben, and if his body wasn't solid red, surrounded by a brilliant aura, with flames surrounding his clenched fists and eyes.

"What the-"

"Say hello, Ben, to the power you gave up!" The fiery doppelganger laughed. "And then say good-bye!" The creature punched the air, shooting off a fireball.

"Oh Crap!" Ben barely managed to grab his green plastic tub to shield himself from the blast. But the plastic melted in his hands, leaving him just enough time to leap out the dorm room door and scatter towards the stairwell.

The fire demon launched an attack on the door, but found it heavily resistant to flame. So instead he blew up the side wall behind the television, and proceeded to follow his quarry.

That night, Ryan was amazingly the last person to go to sleep, even though the next day he would be the first person to get up. But it was finals week, and everyone wanted to be well rested.

Ryan climbed up onto his bed, and pulled himself under the covers. He lay awake for a few moments thinking about the day. He had two strange visions, or rather, auditory premonitions, that had something to do with a guy. Eirik had a weird demon flash, from somewhere near Ben when he got back home. And Ben seemed to be acting strange in general. Perhaps it was the fatigue from having a new job beta testing, and the excitement of a leaving Sears, but perhaps not.

Ryan drummed his fingers along the edge of his comforter, contemplating. He knew it was possible to pre-create dreams right before you fell asleep, but he didn't know how. He just hoped if he focused enough, he'd be able to force a prophet dream that might get to the bottom of all of this.

He tossed and turned in his sleep, while Eirik groaned unhappily at the odd buzzing in his head. Finally, Ryan nodded off.

Ben collapsed underneath the trellis of the bridge linking Hahn Student Services, and what looked like McHenry Hard Records Depository. He struggled to control his breathing, in hopes that his phase shadow would not track him down.

He also hoped that the others would come find him, wherever the hell he was, and get him out of this mess.

But as the droning sound filled his ears again, he knew he wasn't quite that lucky.

So he started running again.

Ryan hopped out of bed, completely alert to his surroundings. Though daylight was flooding the room, the whole place was an odd blue tint. He looked over at Ben's bed. String hung down from the limp form beneath the yellow comforter. The strings ended at a wooden cross bar, like a marionettes. Ben's arm hung loosely down from the side of the bed alongside the strings.

He walked over to the door, ignoring this and opened it.

Now he was fully dressed in his SlugGear. His left arm wouldn't move, and felt waited down by the shield gauntlet. Ryan could tell he was in the middle of a heated battle. He brought out his phase blaster, in order to shoot back, but he couldn't tell what he was fighting.

There were words emblazoned in red spray paint on a wall reading: "The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over Your Lazy Thoughts."

Ryan was back in the room again. Ben was sitting on the gymnastiball in front of Eirik's desk. "What?" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "What?"

A loud buzzing drowned out everything else.

Ryan sat up in bed and shut off his alarm clock. 8:22. Time to get up and get ready for work.

But first he thought to himself. He sat down at his desk and scribbled down everything he could remember from the dream. He was really damn tired now. Probably a side effect of forcing a prophet dream, as he was sure that was one.

Too bad he had to go to work.

As he left the room a few minutes later, he looked over at Ben, lying limp in bed, arm dangling out of it. In his groggy state, Ryan made no connection.

Ben had been running and hiding all night, with no luck. Twice he had gotten into short battles with his pursuer.

Not once had he seen anyone. No human beings. No animals. No sounds save the ones he and his shadow created.

Ben's only plan of action right now, was to find the witches and get them to change things back, which he knew they wouldn't.

That was why he needed persuasion.

He had discovered quite a while ago that the world he was in was half UCSC, and half PCSC. Buildings and locations seemed fluidly interwoven into a giant mess. He was now on top of Science Hill, sorting through the high tech facilities of Sinsheimer Laboratories, which he had not been in for over a year.

He carefully filled a backpack he had found in the hallway with various bottles of chemicals, and filled the shoulder bag he found behind a desk with assortments of mechanical equipment. He continued to search through drawers, until he found something truly useful.

"This is just what I need!" Ben said, carrying the tiny metal and plastic box over to a large table. He pulled out a screwdriver and a small electric wand out of the shoulder bag and opened up the device. Inside was just what he was looking for. However, looking at this small chunk of phase technology, he realized he only barely understood it. All the knowledge of the stuff worked was gone now too. "Damn, I forgot that was all part of my shadow."

Regardless, Ben reassembled the device, and pulled out the OCX goggles from his bag. It was a simple matter to attach the tiny battery onto the elastic strap of the goggles. A few wire connections from the box to the lenses, and Ben's modifications were complete.

"Now to test this out." Ben was beginning to worry about his sanity, the more he talked to himself. But he didn't have time to think about that, his shadow was due to find him any minute.

And his OCXs confirmed this. The battery pack worked perfectly to allow him to use at least this piece of phase technology without having to be a latent mage, as all other phase tech required. The goggles clearly showed a massive energy source, overflowing with phase energy and heat, ascending through the building.

Ben leapt over the lab table, grabbing a handful of documents that explained the phase battery. The shadow burst through the door in an explosion of light and heat before hurtling a fireball at his human counterpart. Ben ducked down, but tossed the papers into the fireball. No need for this battery to get into the wrongs hands… other than his.

"Stop running Benjamin, and let me kill you." He tossed another ball of flame. Ben dodged it, and the shot blasted a whole in the wall, same as BomBen had caused last year in this lab.

"Honestly, I don't want to kill you. But it's the only way I can leave this silent world and enter a real one. Two of us can't exist there. It would create too much chaos."

"Why can't we just live together in one body again?" Ben called over the row of filing cabinets he was hiding behind.

"Would you really ask a Michael Jackson to give up his career to rejoin the Jackson five?"

"Of course… I love the Jackson Five!" Ben yelled, tossing one of the stolen beakers over the cabinets. The glass shattered against the fire Ben's stomach, pouring acids across his skin that all promptly caught flame wrapping a thin blue green line of flame around his chest. The shadow's eyes shot white hot and his arm expanded into a pillar of flame, that blasted straight through the filing cabinets and then through the wall.

The flames dissipated for a second as Fire Ben switched arms. Ben used this moment to leap out through the hole in the wall,

Ben knew how crazy this was, as he was four stories up, without Danielle's help to teleport him to safety like last time…. But this time, there was the massive steel frame of another building standing right next to it.

Ben's abdomen collided with the edge of a walkway. His arms wrapped around the steel girder with all his strength as he pulled himself up onto the frame.

"Stop Running!!" The enraged pyrotechnic shouted across the gap between buildings following his pray. Ben rushed for the stairwell, praying he could get away from his foe again.

"I can't believe Ben is all done with finals now!" Greg said.

"Why not?" Ben replied, turning around in his computer chair.

"Because, it just isn't fair. I mean, my last final is Thursday morning. And here it is, Monday afternoon and you're on spring break!"

"Yeah, but he has to work all week," Ryan added. "So that kind of makes up for things."

"No it doesn't! I don't have the luxury of having a job! I can't go out and spend money when I want to!"

"But you do, Greg, you do!" Eirik added.

"That's besides the point!" Greg shouted with a laugh.

The room fell into a quiet lull, broken only by the sound of keyboard keys clicking away. Greg finally got bored of this.

"Well, I'm going back to my room then. Come get me for dinner guys." As Greg pulled open the door, a loud popping noise sounded over the couch. Ryan and Eirik got to their feet at once as they saw Dei'TethKuTana materialize and flop onto the cushions. "What was that?" Greg asked, beginning to turn around.

"Nothing!" Eirik said, stepping up quickly to block Greg's view of the room. Ryan quickly walked over to the couch and threw the comforter over the familiar. With his head he gestured Drake to head towards the door. The young dragon flew down from his familiar perch on Ryan's bed to a spot just behind the door. He reached around the bottom of the door and quickly bit Greg's ankle before receding into Ben's pile of junk behind the door to hide.

"Oww!" Greg yelped as he leaped out of the doorway into the hallway. "What was THAT?"

"Nothing! Eirik said, allowing the door to close. "Phew that was close. Quick thinking Ryan!"

"Yeah," Ryan said, pulling the blanket off of Dee. "Good work Drake." The dragon snorted in agreement and hoped back up the ladder to the bed. "Now what do you want Dee?"

"The sisters!" The familiar leaped up, almost knocking Ryan and Eirik down. "They are on the attack! West campus, the woods behind Kresge. They are summoning something Dei'TethKuTana thinks. Something wicked bad. Like Styx only worse Dei'TethKuTana fears!"

"Fine, I guess we should go and deal with this before they bring up something unpleasant," Ryan said, returning to his desk for supplies. As he pulled on his jacket, the phone rang, so he answered it. "Oh, hey Danielle, what's up?"

"I'm back from Sacramento. Is something going on? I came back early cause of this weird vision thing I had?" her voice said over the phone line.

"Great, you too? Well where are you now?" Ryan asked.

"On my way to campus, why?"

"We need to get over to west campus fast. The sisters are at it again."

"Okay, I've got my gear right here. I'll meet you at the bookstore, okay?"

"Got it," Ryan replied, hanging up the phone.

"Um, hey guys, do you know where I keep my goggles and gun?" Ben asked, looking up from his side of the room.

"In your desk drawers," Ryan answered, setting the phone back on its cradle on Ben's desk.

"Oh." Ben opened the drawer, but found it devoid of SlugGear. "Well, its not here!"

"Well where did you leave it?" Eirik asked, walking over.

"I don't know. They should be here!" Ben seemed really frantic.

"No time to worry about that now," Ryan said. "You'll just have to use your old phase revolver. You keep that in your sock drawer." Ryan reached past Ben and pulled the smaller gun with the wide bullet case out and handed it to him noting the odd blank look in Ben's face.

"And here, take my blaster. I got my archer and heavy gun still," Eirik said, tossing the other simpler gun at Ben.

"Now lets go, Danielle will be waiting for us."

"Yes, hurry hurry we must, masters and other!" Dee said, vanishing from the room in a puff of smoke.

Eirik and Ryan shook their heads and rushed out the door, with a nervous looking Ben in tow.

Miranda physical body was addressing her sisters in their illusion forms in the three ringed circle of light on the floor of the woods, the same as Cordelia had done a few weeks ago. Their council had fulfilled its purpose of attracting Dei'TethKuTana's attention.

"They will be their soon, sister dear," Cordelia said, looking at the youngest appearing of the three as she hovered over the ground.

"Yes I know, I should prepare for their arrival."

"Yes, do so. And don't mess up. We've wasted a lot of time and energy on this plan, and it would set us back greatly. Especially as it already has divided the sky even more."

"I know sister," Miranda said, avoiding Ophelia's eyes.

"Good. Then go to it." Ophelia vanished from her ring.

"I, at least, wish you luck, my sister," Cordelia said, bowing and vanishing. The circle of council faded out of existence, leaving Miranda alone. She let out a deep sigh.

"No pressure," she grumbled. Miranda realized, now that she was free to have her own thoughts, she was growing more and more disgusted by Ophelia's lust to complete their mission. Ophelia was always about business, and never saw possibilities.

Besides… things were getting a little more complicated. These kids were doing something good for the world, both worlds, even if they were severely breaking their cardinal rule. Besides… some of the people weren't so bad…

Miranda shook her head. She couldn't have these thoughts if she was about to go into battle with them.

She halted in her flight away from her meeting ground and concentrated. A green aura of light surrounded her. She slowly drew the power of the natural world around her to her command. And waited.

Ben sat in the deserted classroom at Kresge with his back to the wall. His OCX was working madly to locate the flying fireball that was after him. Flying fireball.. flying fire. firefly. Firefly! Shit, that's what the little girl called him at the boardwalk back in September.

"You've forced our hands Firefly," Red winked. Ben flashed back to the little girl, red hair, green sundress standing in the fading daylight. That was the witch who had first drawn him into this tonight, only now she was an adult.

Ben stopped this train of thought and began tinkering with his phase blaster. It, like his heavy gun, was useless to him too. But he hoped he could take it apart and make it of use. He shuffled through his shoulder bag of tech supplies, and quickly tried to patch together into a second phase battery. It was hard though. He had to rely on his partial engineer studies, and not the gift of phase tech knowledge.

Come to think of it. That wasn't the only time someone had used the term firefly.

"Firefly the graces say, you'll burn again another day" It was Danielle's video game form talking to him. Did the game really know about the witches… and about this day with this creature? Or did it just pull that out of his mind from the day at the boardwalk?

He snapped in one last piece on the battery, and a surge and a hum went through it. Quickly he attached it to his belt, and his phase saber's sheath. Now he had at least two working weapons.

Which was good as he could hear Firefly's 'wings' starting to head his way. He collected his bag and rushed out the door. Ben quickly tied a long piece of leather he had found around his wrist with a large loop. A simple slingshot with which he hurled another beaker of chemicals at the pyroid.

"Eirik, you picking up anything yet?" Ryan asked as the group leapt from the car and rushed down into the woods behind Kresge college.

"Not yet… just the average background noise I usually get when I'm in PCSC… which is strange since we're not there. Regardless, the witches themselves don't usually set things off for me."

"How about you Ryan, any premonitions?" Danielle asked.

"Nope, nothing since my prophet dream last night!" he replied.

"What, you had a prophet dream? What happened?" Eirik asked as he jumped over a large root.

"I- I honestly don't recall now," Ryan turned his head and looked at Ben for a moment, but Ben did not look at him.

In the distance, the familiar shape of their Familiar appeared on the path on a large rock.

"The green witchy is just over there!" he pointed, the tiny vestigial bat wings on his back fluttering excitedly.

"Drake, go scout it out!" Ryan called, straightening out his arm to allow the dragon on his shoulder a runway.

The dragon shot off into the woods.

A moment later he shot back into Ryan's arms, propelled on a surge of electricity.

"What was that?" Danielle shouted.

They skirted to a halt as they came to a wider portion of the path. The green witch with red hair stood staring at them, her eyes solid emerald.

"You may call me…. Miranda… for as long as you live that is!" She shot another bolt of lightning at the group, which Ryan barely managed to shield them with his gauntlet.

Eirik raised his phase archer and let fly an energy arrow. It shot straight through the witch's chest. She sneered.

"That stings… but does nothing to me." The wound instantly healed. From her fingers shot more lightning that curved around Ryan's shields and shot through Eirik's mechanical arm.

"Stop that!" Danielle shouted. She quickly teleported behind and above Miranda and fired off her own ball of lightning and teleported away before Miranda could react. But the witch flicked her fingers, and a charge of lightning was there to meet Danielle when she reappeared. "Uh!"

"Dee! Can you do anything to her?" Ryan shouted.

"What sir? Dei'TethKuTana is a familiar. We amplify magical powers, we do not have much of our own!"

"Shit. Well then, amplify me then!"

Dee wavered a moment, than placed his scaly hand on Ryan's shoulder. Ryan felt a wave of strength flow into him, and he had his phase gun in hand and was firing it before he knew it. Miranda flinched as each shot went through her.

"Nothing more than bee stings," she laughed as she fired off a blast of lightning.

"no." Ryan barely whispered the word as his other hand shot upward and absorbed the lightning. Miranda's eyes grew wider as she tried to halt her attack, but instead, Ryan drew the lightning out of her, and into some other reality through a tiny portal he opened on his palm.

Miranda finally broke off the link. "You cretin!" she hissed. "I'll just have to switch to something you can't absorb or banish!" The witch rose into the air, green aura surrounding her, head tilted back. The ground began to shake, and the trees began to attack the group. Branches shot down at them. Leaves swirled like daggers through the air. Ryan tried to put up a shield, but a root shot out of the ground and pierced straight through his upper left arm.

Eirik, moaning on the ground, managed to raise his arm and fire off his rocket fist. The free flying metal hand grabbed the root and pulled it loose.

"That hurt!" Ryan shouted.

"I know…. Errr…. Sorry bout that."

"Not you, her!" Ryan said, raising his gun again and firing. But he found out that the shots didn't even touch her now.

"Ben! Why aren't you doing anything?" Danielle shouted

"Oh, sorry," Ben said. He looked at Danielle and smiled a sheepish apology.

For a second before he turned and tried firing yellow shots from his revolver, he caught Ryan's eyes. Something about the increase in power from Dee caused Ryan's super vision to fire off on its own. His vision shot off, zooming in on Ben's eye, and down into Ben's mind. There was a symbol, something archaic, wrapped around his ankle, like a tattoo. But there was something else too. A strange energy. A bond. Ryan saw Japanese cherry trees in full bloom. He saw fields of foxes running beneath the moon. Beautiful women kissing men, and leaving them for dead. He saw and felt sudden pain as whoever's eyes he was looking into was pulled from its world out into the fields of Santa Cruz by Ophelia.

Ryan pulled back into his own head, and was shocked to find his vision still intact. But he was more shocked as Ben turned and fired shots at Miranda, and seemed to intentionally miss.

"Ben! You're not even hitting her! What's wrong?" Eirik asked as he stood up.

"Drake! Dragon Blast!" Ryan commanded, pointing at Ben. The dragon looked unsure of itself until he saw the determination in Ryan's eyes. The dragon leapt into the air and sent Ben flying against a tree, burn marks across its chest.

Miranda's head shot down, her eyes full of fire. "You are going to pay for that!" She roared, and lunged down at Ryan. Danielle quickly grabbed the Spellwinder from her leg and spun it out below Miranda. Light flashed from the spinning top, and a pentacle appeared beneath her, trapping her in place.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" Danielle shouted as she ran up and grabbed Drake from the air. The string connecting her to the spellwinder stayed in place as she moved. The dragon wriggled in her arms.

"He's not Ben! He's whatever demon Eirik sensed last night. I saw it. In its head. It's a fox demon! Or something. Look!"

Ryan pointed at the spot on Ben's chest were the energy breath had hit. As predicted, Drake barely singed him, thinking it was Ben. But it was enough to show that his body was healing abnormally fast.

"He's right!" Dee said in amazement. "Why did Dei'TethKuTana not see it before!" Dee's eyes turned solid white. "Demon hidden in human drape. I command thee, return to your natural shape!" Light flashed in the familiar's hand, and Ben began to glow. His body reshaped itself until it was back in the form of a large white fox, staring up at the SlugGang members with large sad eyes.

"Oh wow, its pretty! Hard to believe it's a demon!" Danielle said in amazement.

"Let me loose from here you horrid mage pretender!" Miranda shouted.

"Shut up or I'll leave you there once we're done here!" Danielle said, refusing to even look at the witch. "So where did this thing come from?"

"The white witch sister summoned it. Made it some kind of prisoner. Forced it to do her bidding," Ryan said, recalling the impressions from the vision. "A puppet. That's what my dream last night meant. Why did you witches do this to this Kitsune?!" Ryan shouted at Miranda.

"Your friend Ben was the best candidate to test my sister Cordelia's plan on. It would eliminate most of you from the situation without killing you. We thought you'd like that."

"Then why are you attacking us now?" Eirik said, picking up his hand from the ground and re-attaching it.

"Because, you fools. You and the boy with the visions there have screwed things up worse! You exist in two worlds, and must still be killed! You don't get off easy."

"We don't die easy either."

"ENOUGH!" Came a booming voice. Light flooded the field as Ophelia materialized. "You messed things up here Miranda dear!"

"Sister Ophelia, I was handling it."

"You are caught in a binding spell!" Ophelia waved her hand angrily, and the spellwinder shot back into Danielle's hand. "Now sister, let us go. Kitsune, destroy them, or I shall destroy you." The sisters vanished from the woods.

The group turned back to the fox spirit, whose body was tensing up to attack. Eirik quickly acted.

"Danielle! The spellwinder! Bind it so Ryan can unsummon it!"

"What?"

"Yes! Kitsune. We know you were brought against your will. Please! Let me send you back!" Ryan pleaded with the spirit. The fox loosened up and looked at the group puzzled for a moment. Then it nodded.

Danielle restrung the winder at let it loose. The Kitsune leapt above it as it spun, and landed in the air as it spun, trapping it in the ring and star of light.

"Dee, help me out here," Ryan said. The familiar placed his hand on Ryan again and Ryan's right hand shot out a wave of power. With Dee's help, he could feel himself guide the portal he opened in the binding ring to the place the Kitsune needed to go. The fox wrinkled out of sight, and the group relaxed, collapsing to the ground in slight relief.

"Well, that's that!" Danielle said.

"Yes! But what about Ben?" Eirik added. They all groaned.

The person in question, was oddly enough, right nearby them. He leaped over the same root Eirik had, as his double chased him. He only had one more bottle left to throw, and that he did now as Firefly was almost right on top of him. The glass shattered, and the flames roared, as did the phase shadow creature.

"Come on shadow! That all you got?" Ben's mind was racing, trying to think of something else he could do. The fiery him had chased him someplace he doubted he could find anything useful to use in.

Then, as he tried to race around a tree, he stumbled over something. It was a round spinning disk. Danielle's SpellWinder!

"They must be here somewhere… in one of the two worlds!" Ben said carefully to himself. He grabbed the disk and hoped it would stay operational as he ran. The pentagram of light followed the device, which worried Ben. "If he sees this and recognizes it, I'm screwed!"

He raced around a tree, and started charging right at Firefly's side. He let our a battle growl and tossed the disk. It skidded across the ground, and halted under the crimson man. Firefly turned his head, eyes ablaze, towards Ben. His nostrils flared, and that little vein on his forehead bulged out. He moved to attack Ben, but the spellwinder caught him in its ring of light.

"I can still attack you!" Firefly roared, throwing a fireball.

"Yeah? Well so can I!" Ben flipped on the phase battery as he dodged the flames. Then he flipped the switch on the sword's sheath. The blade pulled out awash in maroon colored energy.

Ben let out another cry as he charged forward, plunging the sword into Firefly's burning chest. For the first time, the shadows eyes reverted into normal, white, human eyes.

"What?" he gasped.

"Anything Ryan?" Eirik asked.

Ryan slumped his shoulders and took off the bandana.

"No. I even managed to get a brief glimpse into PCSC, and nothing. No Ben!"

"Dammit!" Danielle said. "And Dee can't find him since he's not Dee's master!"

"Sorry…" the familiar said, hanging his head in shame.

"Well what are we going to do? We have to find him!" Danielle said with a heavy amount of frustration. She began pacing in the small patch of forest they were in.

"Well, maybe we should head over to East Remote. If that is where they summoned that fox thing, maybe that has clues to where Ben went," Eirik suggested.

"Hey yeah! That's not a bad idea!"

"Wait, guys, look!" Danielle said, pointing to the ground.

"What Danielle? I don't see anything," Eirik noted.

"Exactly! Where is the SpellWinder?"

"Wait… Ben's weapons were missing today… and last night his computer was acting weird…" Ryan added.

"You don't think he's here… but we just can't see him do you?" Eirik asked.

"Pulling a Buffy concept on us, is he?" Danielle added.

"Maybe… but you'd think I'd be able to see that… unless he's in an altered plane of reality."

"Okay, new plan, how can we test this out?" Eirik said, clapping his hands together.

"What… have you done?" Firefly asked in shock and pain. "You've killed me."

"As you said, we can't exist apart, so one of us had to."

Ben felt sick for saying it, and even more sick for having shoved a sword through his own double. He fought the urge to leave it there and keep his stomach only half nauseous and pulled the sword out. As it came back into the air, Ben's stomach turned.

"You fool…" Firefly laughed, half heartedly.

The fire around him began to change into pure light. His whole body dissolved away into this light, leaving only a ball of flame.

Instinctively, Ben reached out and grabbed the fire. It hurt, but did not burn. Ben flinched, and for a second thought he was going to cause something to explode into flames again. But that power was gone now.

Or was it? Ben was suddenly aware of a pressure just on the inside of his forehead. He could feel that the vein right there was bulging out again. He looked around him until he saw a rock nearby. He concentrated on releasing the pressure, and the rock exploded.

Ben opened his hand, and found the flame had vanished. He smiled suddenly, realizing he could now control his power.

Looking at the remains of the rock, he saw a strange glowing light in a circle, and within the circle, he could make out Danielle's arm. He rushed at it, and vanished.

"Oh my god! That rock just exploded!" Eirik said. Ryan pulled Danielle out of the way of the burning rock.

"Okay, more proof for the amazing invisible Ben but… how do we get him back," she asked.

"Woah guys! There's a door way there, stand back!" Ryan could barely make out the opening, and the three of them watched as Ben appeared in a flash of light, where the rock had been. The opening closed up behind him.

"You guys are here!" Ben cheered turning around.

"And you're back! What happened?" Danielle asked, hugging him.

"The old witch trapped me between the two worlds I think," he answered, hugging Danielle back so she would let go. "Then turned my fire power into a real person who has been chasing me since last night. But I used your spellwinder Danielle to trap it and kill it."

"You killed your phase shadow?" Ryan asked, his eyebrows arched in amazement.

"Yeah, only I think I actually just re-integrated it into myself. Look!" Ben focused again and felt the pressure build in his head. He let them go, and watched as another rock nearby exploded.

"Wow! Alright! So hopefully no sudden surprise fires then!" Eirik said, incredibly enthusiastic.

"Hopefully not!" Ben laughed. "So… how come you guys didn't come look for me… and why are you all the way out here?"

Ryan shrugged. "Shape shifting fox demon."

"Ahh!" Ben said, knowing it had to be true, and not sure if he wanted to know the full story.

The group began walking back up the hill out of the forest, heading for the car.

Later that night.

"Wow Ben, that was a lot of quick thinking!" Danielle said after Ben explained how he found and built phase batteries.

"Yeah, well same to you, using that spellwinder to catch Miranda. I'm just glad I found these bags-" Ben suddenly stopped talking, got to his feet and put on his jacket and shoes.

"What's wrong Ben?" Eirik asked as the true roommate walked to the door.

"I just realized! If I grabbed materials from this world when people weren't looking, then I stole two people's bags today! I'm going to go return them!" he answered as he rushed out the door.

The others all laughed and returned to what they were doing. There would be time to laugh and make jokes about this when finals were done.

END