"Beat! Rhyme! Neku! Shiki! You all need to get back and behind an object or something!" I shouted and dove behind a toppled over vending machine where Joshua was crouched, his eyes intently examining the screen of his phone that illuminated his face. He typed away on it as I heard Nikolai's maniacal laughter rang throughout the air as I felt the pull of imagination as he drew it towards him. He absorbed it into his body and I ducked down close to Joshua as he scooted closer to me.

"I'm going to bring Neku and the others to Dead God's Pad, to keep them from getting more injured than they already have. Do you think you'd be able to keep Nikolai occupied before I come back?" Joshua asked. I nodded and he engulfed my frame in a hug as I raised my arms to hug him back. We quickly pulled away but I could feel that he did not want to let me go as his embrace was tight.

"I'll be alright Joshua. Take them when I tackle him to the ground," I said, wondering how I would accomplish that as he nodded his head. It made me smile to know that Joshua cared for the other's safety and getting them away from the heat of the battle. I held my wings close to my body as Nikolai released the imagination, causing it to spread out from around him like a shock wave. It came out as darkness and pushed back everything it touched, consuming some of the objects and turning them into ashes before it evaporated and vanished into thin air. The only objects that weren't affected were the ones surrounded by a white glow that radiated off of them and was spreading across the ground fighting off the darkness.

I jumped up and raised both of my hands as they began to glow. I focused the imagination inside of me and swiped my hands to both sides as the light rushed off of me in waves, directly hitting the darkness pooling off of Nikolai as it clashed against it, but effectively stopped it. I dashed to the side as Nikolai raised his hand and summoned spikes that shot out of his hand like bullets. Raising my own hand, light shot out of it towards Nikolai, to which he raised his hand as darkness formed a wall long enough to allow him to teleport away in another cloud of black mist. The light ate through the darkness and shot around the room looking for the presence of Nikolai.

Joshua's beams of light surrounded one area where Nikolai appeared in and Joshua clicked a button on his phone and a beam struck the center of the circle where Nikolai was, who let out a scream as I saw his mist appear in front of me as he materialized out of thin air. I lunged forward and tackled him to the ground as my wings flapped on my back to hold him down on the ground.

"What are you trying to accomplish? You can't just suck all the power away from me and the Angels have most likely already been alerted of your presence. They will be coming soon and I will make sure to attend your trial," I said as I pursed my lips together. Nikolai smirked, his eyes dangerously flashing red again as he leaned towards me. A piece of his hair fell behind his ear. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joshua get up from where he was and move over to Neku and Shiki as he whispered something to them before shoving them out of the room, following after them, despite them not wanting to leave. I could sense the hesitance in their steps.

"Well, I want all the power I can get my hands on, starting with you and Shibuya. It'll be easier to take the power from you now that they all left. I won't say that I didn't place some Taboo Noise in that room ahead of time but it's too late to warn them," Nikolai said as he sung out the last part. I heard Shiki's shriek and I snapped my head up only to realize my mistake when Nikolai threw me off of him as he pushed me off with a wave of darkness. I cried out as I hit the wall and scurried over to the side as the shadows of the room reached out towards me. Flapping my wings, I flew above me and avoided the ball of darkness that struck the wall behind me, creating a crater as it blew up.

"How are you affecting the RG?! We're in the UG!" I said and glanced back towards the wall for a second before flying to the side and up and down, avoiding the bolts of darkness Nikolai sent my way. When the bolts stopped firing towards me, I darted down towards Nikolai, raising my hands in front of me as a beam of light shot out of them. Midway, it made contact with another beam created from imagination. Nikolai summoned his own beam of darkness and sent it at me, only to have it collide with the light. Both clashed against each other, one being light, while the other was darkness in contrast to it, and when they connected, they stayed in the air like that trying to push against each other and Nikolai and I both pushed against one another, pushing our beams of either light or darkness to hit the other.

The beams seemed to merge with each other, and disappear once I let up on my imagination, as Nikolai seemed to do the same. I held me hand out to a vending machine that was glowing (since it thankfully had survived Nikolai's stunt earlier) and swiped, causing it to fly past me and Nikolai ducked just barely in time for it to nick his shoulder, burning it with the light. When I did this, I failed to notice the darkness creeping at me from below, until the bolt made contact with my leg. I bit my lip to hold in a scream as I knelt down slightly and felt a warm liquid drip down my leg. My heart beat faster against my chest as I stumbled to the side as another bolt hit the wall right where my head was, slicing off a few strands of my hair from its close proximity.

As Nikolai threw more attacks at me, I noticed the Taboo Noise floating around him that fired themselves at me. I raised my hand as light struck them and they faded to a static in the air as they screamed out and faded away, disappearing from what the eye could see. However, taking out one Taboo Noise only seemed to spawn in more as they surrounded me from all sides as I knelt down and concentrated my imagination and released it in all directions away from me like a shock wave, and when the Taboo Noise touched the light I produced, they screamed and faded away into the familiar static.

Nikolai raised his hand and I felt the imagination be drained from the nearby cities as I rushed at him as my hand glowed brightly with a shade of white and I punched Nikolai's shoulder. He yelled and grabbed my arm and bent it back towards me as he raised his leg to roundhouse me. I ducked and yanked my arm from his grip, but it was firm and I ended up pulling him towards me from the force I used. The awkward position was enough to send us both falling to the ground but Nikolai flapped his wings in desperation to keep himself from falling, hitting me in the face with the inky feathers on his wings that seemed to be falling off with each movement.

I flapped my own to stabilize myself and Nikolai let go of my arm and pushed back on my chest sending me stumbling backwards as I tried to regain my footing, only to panic at him rushing at me and flew into the air, hitting the ceiling of the tunnel with my head. The adrenaline in my veins made no notice to my head which was going to have a headache in the morning. Joshua! Where are you?!

I flew around the room as Nikolai spun around trying to see me and I landed back on the ground as he spun around to face me.

Both of us continued attack after attack, until I saw that we weren't doing anything major or serious to each other. Nikolai noticed the same and rushed at me. I raised my hand and in my panicked moment summoned a ball of light in my hand as I held it out towards Nikolai, who tried to stop as I saw his body try to disappear in that black mist. As I released it, Nikolai didn't have enough time to disappear fully and he was hit in the chest, knocking him backwards into the wall. Nikolai gasped for air as he crouched down and held a hand to his chest. For a moment he stayed there, not moving an inch as his chest remained still, and I walked up to him, only to find myself jumping backwards into the air as a bolt of darkness was sent my way. As he tried to rush at me, staggering from the move I used before which weakened him greatly, I raised my hand from the ground up, a wall comprised fully of light appearing between us. Nikolai jumped backwards, using his wings to keep from falling over and raised his hand as I felt my leg freeze in place. I looked down and my eyes widened at the sigil that Nikolai had created at the beginning of the fight. It crept up my leg and the shadows around me seemed to grab my arm, holding in place, despite how much I protested against it. Nikolai stopped walking towards me when he was a foot away and smirked.

"Gotcha~"

"What is this sigil?" I asked, my voice almost stuttering at my body which wasn't responding to what I wanted it to. Nikolai rolled his eyes as he still grabbed at his chest as he wheezed, coughing as blood dripped down his chin.

"That was one hell of a move you did back there," Nikolai gasped out as he wiped his chin, smearing the blood as I noticed his step falter slightly. "But, you are really stupid you know that? This sigil allows me to, allow me to put it in terms for you to understand, let me control your body. You should already be feeling the effect of it as you can't feel your body. Like a puppet you will be, really." Nikolai chuckled, which caused him to cough violently once more and I heard footsteps run over towards us. I was barely able to look at Joshua who had ran up to us, phone in hand. He took one glance at me and saw the sigil creeping up my body and he narrowed his eyes, calculating something in his head before he met my eyes.

"S-Stay back Joshua! I can't control my body..." I said, before it felt like I lost all the oxygen in my body as my throat constricted. I gasped for air as the oxygen in the air returned all at once and my arm raised itself as the light poured into my hand as it constructed itself into a ball of light aimed directly at Joshua. His eyes widened as his mouth was agape. His eyes showed a look of disbelief as he stared at my hand. "D-Dodge it!" I shouted as I released it. Nikolai had one hand raised as he mimicked the movements I was doing. Joshua took a step back and gulped before his body levitated in the air and the light went flying into the wall behind him. He quickly landed and bit his lip, clearly not making any move to try and harm me, as my body acted on its own with Nikolai pulling at the strings. My arm raised upward as light shot out of the floor towards Joshua as he dashed to the side and levitated. One of the beams hit his arm and sliced through it. My eyes widened and I was in a state of shock. Even Joshua seemed hurt, as he touched his arm and raised his blood stained hand to his face.

"This is touching, Composer. But if you don't listen to what I say-" Nikolai said as he made a motion with his hand. I noticed a large spot of blood on his shirt where his chest was where I had hit him previously as it dripped onto the floor, creating a small pool of blood beneath him. His face was paler than usual.

My hands raised up to my throat as they glowed dangerously with a white light.

"-then she will have to take her own life."