Angel Monarch

The grassy plain was moved by the gentle wind and Bea felt on edge. In the background there was something bigger going on, she just couldn\'t figure out what it was. She listened to Vicky\'s concerns about Sera, and it would be a lie to say she hadn\'t notice the changes in her personality.

Even though she was trying to remain in the blissful ignorance, there was still a feeling at the back of her mind screaming at her to do something.

Speaking of screaming, while she stared out at the smooth plains, behind her a girl screamed. Since there was only one girl in the group Bea knew who to run to and within a second she was holding a trembling Vicky.

She was crying and between sobs she whispered, "Don\'t hurt my mummy... *sob* Leave her alone..."

With her hand Bea made small strokes on her back and hair, which seemed to calm her down a bit.

"Shh... It\'s okay, you just had a nightmare... Nothing is going to get you and Sera can protect herself..."

Suddenly Vicky burst away from her arms and with a face full of tear marks shouted, "NO!... SHE CAN\'T!..."

Slowly Bea tried to reach for Vicky\'s hand, but she quickly evaded it. With a sigh she let her hand fall, and asked in a soothing tone, "Why do you say that?"

Vicky turned her head a bit trying to focus on some memory but having hard time doing so. Eventually she seemed to remember and said loudly, but also less angrily.

"It\'s that man in the lab coat! I don\'t quite remember him, but he is doing something to Sera! That\'s why she has been acting strangely in this past week or so!"

At first Bea thought that this was just part of her nightmare, but she soon realized that wasn\'t the case. Steadily she walked towards Vicky and went down on eyelevel, her face was deathly serious as she said, "Okay Vicky, tell me everything you remember!"

She didn\'t speak like a mother would to her child, but more like a commander to her subordinate. It wasn\'t the time to be careful with emotions, they needed to learn more about this potential threat.

Unlike how she expected, Vicky wasn\'t even remotely disturbed and seemed to have a better grasp on the situation, than most in her place would. Without skipping a beat she started from the very beginning.

"I remember, back when I got captured by Nightmare there was a person – an old man, in a lab coat. He was a scientist of sorts, at first I thought he was one of Nightmare\'s lieutenants, but that wasn\'t the case at all... *sigh* He was his boss!"

There was a thoughtful expression on Bea\'s face, then her eyes widened from surprise. She remembered that when they won the fight in Havel, there was only a single person who escaped... the scientist.

They even tried to figure out what he researched, but literally all of his papers were burned. There wasn\'t a single trace left from him, every person who knew how he looked was dead.

"You mean that that Mad Scientist Harold was the one giving orders to Nightmare?! But how is that possible?... We would\'ve noticed him if that would\'ve been the case!"

At this point the rest of the group was standing around them listening to every single word.

"What caused Nightmare\'s madness?" Behind Bea a quiet and pained voice asked. Lucy was looking away at the sun that was about to come out of its daily hiding. It might\'ve look tranquil, if you ignored her hands that were shaking from hatred.

"I don\'t know... We never figured it out... Sarah, do you know how anyone gets infected by Madness?"

"No. We never figured it out. Even the other Realms we made contact with only have theories. The one thing we know about the infection is that it\'s not random... It\'s like there is a consciousness hidden deep inside, not quite controlling but more like guiding the maddened creature."

The explanation didn\'t really help. There were just too many missing puzzle pieces to see even part of the full picture.

\'Sera would know... She can always figure out a lot more from a small amount of information... *sigh* Focus, Bea! Self pity won\'t help anyone, especially Sera!\'

"Okay, so we know that Nightmare got infected by Madness at some point, and he had to give up fighting for it to take full effect!" Said Bea as a way to reorganize their knowledge. Going on the same thought process, Hellfire continued.

"And we know that Harold wasn\'t with us when we left Copen! I remember everyone of those thousands we rescued, there were no scientists..."

Suddenly Lucy shouted, "THAT\'S IT!... It was him all along! He made Nightmare mad and caused the break down of our whole group!"

James looked at her, then whispered something to Lucy. Whatever it was it made her angry expression become sad and she nodded her thanks towards him. After this he turned to the rest of the group.

"Okay, so this Harold went and corrupted Nightmare, and possibly others... But why? He also captured Sera by proxy once as well, and now he is trying to do something else to her... But what?"

Everyone turned silent and became thoughtful. The first one to reply was Vicky, but what she said made everyone scared.

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"He... He\'s taking away her memories... At least that\'s what it felt like within my dream..."

"Okay, Vicky. What did you dream about exactly, every detail counts!" The urgency in Bea\'s voice affected everyone, and they all became concerned.

With a small nod Vicky began to retell everything. She spoke about the bunch of doors with writing that she couldn\'t read. Then she talked of the despair and loss she felt coming from her mother. Finally she spoke about Harold, and his message.

Strangely enough she couldn\'t describe anything about him, except the scientist garb and welding glasses.

The members looked at one another with fear. The whole dream seemed to be a metaphor, the doors represented each of her memories and experiences, and them being locked meant she couldn\'t remember them.

Not being able to read didn\'t have any hidden meaning, you just simply can\'t read in dreams.

But Harold and him touching Sera\'s head, was clearly indication that it was his doing, this also brought other questions up.

\'Just how strong is that scientist?! If he can just simply lock or erase memories, he has to be at least transcended!... Which means we can\'t fight him, not even if all of us would be ascended, the gap is just simply too big...\'

The others seemed to understand this as well, but Bea didn\'t let the depressed mood linger.

"Everyone! Yes this is bad news, and we don\'t even know where Sera is, but we won\'t give in to hopelessness! First we find that corrupted north from here and kill him! Then we find and save Sera before it\'s too late!... Any objections?"

The group stayed silent, but the sadness had been replaced by determination.

"Good, then let\'s mount and find this Notus!"

She didn\'t have to order twice, soon all the hippogryphs were mounted and in the air. The goal has been set, and they will achieve it at any cost!

...

They flew for about an hour before they reached the foggy marshlands Zephyr talked about. At the edge of it they got off of their mounts and went inside the humid wetlands.

The area was quite precarious for multiple reasons, the ground was covered in a small layer of water which made it easy to trip, while the fog took most of their vision away. The only people who could really sense approaching creatures were Faith and Vicky.

Vicky using her soul vision, and Faith with her shadow sense. They were their main scouts, but there were no need for them. It was quite obvious where they needed to go...

In the middle of the swamp a weird storm was raging. It was strange since the clouds that made up the storm weren\'t moving in any direction. They just went around in a circle.

The whole group watched the clouds move for a few moments, it was kind of mesmerizing, and ironically serene. The sound of thunder reached them every now and then, but there was mostly just a warm breeze blowing around them.

They continued to move towards it. Non were really shocked to find this weird phenomenon, since Zephyr was kind enough to provide exact descriptions of what to look for.

She also said there will be a large building in the eye of the storm, and inside they would find Notus.

The group cautiously approached the edge of the storm wall, then Bea stopped and turned towards them.

"Is everyone ready?" She asked, but already knew the answer. Everyone looked at each other and collectively nodded.

With a large sigh Bea turned around and stepped inside the downpour.