Remy went after her.

Nyx felt the buzz again.

"Are you alright?" asked Hotohori No Otaku. "I thought you of all people would not be phased by such a sight. I had the feeling you like gore."

Nyx had run to the lake out back and was kneeling at its bank, splashing her face and neck with the cool water. She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her trench coat.

"That's precisely the reason I had to get my ass out of there." Nyx got to her feet and whipped out a .45 silencer. With lightning speed she pinned Remy up against a tree and was pressing the gun's nuzzle at her throat. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't blow your head clear off right now. Why have you come here?" She demanded.

"Would you be so low as to kill an ally?"

"Ally?!? The last time I checked you were bumpin' ass with the other team? Do you really think I would fall for the twice in a row?"

Nyx clicked the trigger.

"NO!" It was Seth. "You don't want to do this, Nyx."

"What do you want? Go back to your porn flicks yarou. This is my business."

"As your Guardian, I have a duty to stop you when I think you're going to fuck up." This was another side of Seth which had never surfaced before. She could tell from the furrow in his brow and the intesity in his eyes that he was serious. "Now drop the gun."

Nyx looked from him, to a quivering Remy. She let go of the girl. "Temmee," Nyx mouthed under her breath.

Remy sank to the base of the tree, clutching her throat. "I guess it's out of the question for you to trust me--"

"It is." Replied the trenchcoat girl firmly. She turned to Seth, but he was gone. Nyx began to walk back to the No Mori.



>Nyx threw her threch coat across the room. The afternoon sun streamed through the open window.

What was Celly thinking cutting her wrists? Did she know how important her life was? How much she meant to Dion?

Blood...

Blood...

The crimson dripped from the silver mail opener.

Blood...

Blood...

Screams...

Nyx shook herself. 'Screams?' Celly didn't scream.

She felt her head grow light, lighter, and lighter. She had to sit down. No, lie down. Her room was becoming blurry, figures lost their sharpness. She felt herself sinking to the floor and everythign went black.

Nyx was standing at the edge of a river bank. It was night.

Across the black water, the shouts and jeering of the hostile crowd roared loudly. Something caused a bright glow from the clearing.

P'Where am I?' she thought.

She founded herself transported in the middle of the excitement. A large crowd had gathered. The people's anger and fear were evident. Some of the men carried pitch forks and lit torches, while the women clutched their children closely. She drifted to the front.

A bonfire had been lit. A stake was placed in the midst of it. And a man was fastened to that stake.

Someone else's thoughts pireced her own. Someone was sobbing. Nyx turned from the spectacular. Her eyes focused in on a petite figure enshourded in a dark cloak standing at the mouth of the wood. She drifted towards it. The person's thoughts strengthed.

Sadness.

Who are you--? Nyx drew back in shock. She was staring at herself.

"To hell with you, beast!"

"Demon!"

"Monster!"

The voices of the crowd were not as deafning as Victoria's sobs.

'Please, oh lord. Don't let this happen.' the girl cried out in her mind.

Sadness. Fear. Anger.

'I will show them.'

Nyx looked from her past self to the man about ot be consummed by the red-orange flames. Thousands of embers wisked into the star lit sky.

The man was coming into consiousness. His cloudy blue eyes expressed deep sorrow, not for himself, but for his friend.

'Do not do this because of me.' Came his response.

The mindworm listened in to the mental dialog.

'They will pay.' The anger grew stronger. Stronger. Stronger. Stronger still.

Blood...

Flames...

Blood...

The sudden pain of recognition hit her sharply all over. It felt like an electric shock surging through her veins. On impulse, Nyx made a grab for Victoria's shoulders, but her hands went through the girl's body.

The flames swallowed the man's legs. But he held back from voicing his pain. He could not allow her to use the power. Not for this. Not for him.

One of ther men pushed his way to the front and struck an iron spear into the doomed man's torso.

A sudden gust of wind blew the blackened smoke which obscured the man's face. Nyx gasped. It was Milton.

He screamed in agony.

The blood gushed from the wound, dripping from the spear, into the fire.

Feeling his pain. Victoria, too, screamed.

"NO!" Nyx jumped into the girl. Their spirits merged, past, present and future selves into One. Nyx saw her life thread as though she was in the Continuum. Victoria lost herself. Gwydion's monster surfeced. The Nyx surfaced.

Meanwhile... back at the No Mori.

Seth yawned. He had just awoke from a nap and was in animal form.

"There you are." Remy was coming up the stairs.

Seth purred. "Meow?" He spun back to his human form. "Nani?"

"I--wanted to thank you."

Seth yawned again and stretched. "Nani?"

"I was sure Nyx was going to pull the trigger."

"Nyx? I haven't Nyx all day?" Then realizing that the girl he was talking to was Hotohori No Otaku, he drew back against the banister. "Okay. I'm dreaming. I'm going back to bed."



The shroud flew violently backwards from the girl's shoulders and the hemitite amulet of Gwydion which she wore around her neck glowed fiercely. Its aura enveloped her.

Lightning streaked the cloudless sky and rain pour down heavily, dousing the bon fire. The terrified villagers ran for cover.

"Run. Run for you measly, pathetic, little lives. You cannot escape me." Nyx stretched her hands out infront of her with her fists clentched and her wrists pressed together. A shimmering black aura ball surrounded her fists. Lightning streaked in her eyes and she smiled.

Milton had fallen out of consiousness, his head drooped, his chin touching his chest.

"Y' ouche gomme ya..." she began the incantation. "MANOS!!" With that she spread her fists and out surgged balls of flame which chased down the fleeing crowd, rounding them up like cattle, then forming a massive wall of flame. It encircled them and rose higher, tightening around them. Violent screams expelled from the wall of flame.

"BURN." Nyx threw her head back in maniacal laughter.



Nomori No Otaku...

Remy saw that the door to Nyx's room was left ajar. 'I shouldn't,' she thought. Despite herself, she knocked on the door.

"Nyx?" Remy saw that the girl had collapsed on the floor and a ring of fire encircled her. "Nyx!"

TBC....