Raven:

'Jessica- where are you even going?' I thought up to my counterpart.

We had stopped several hundred meters away from the boys. "It doesn't really matter, I have the tracker, they can't find me," Jessica said, holding up the DNA tracer as she hid behind a tree.

'I can just take over and take us back.'

"Can you? Have you ever actually forced my consciousness down against my will?"

'Have you ever stopped mine?' I thought inside our head. Odd to think, neither of us had ever really forced the other to do anything against their will in all our time together. There was now a fear growing in me. What if Jessica really could make me do things against my will? I didn't want to leave the boys but, here I was. Even if I did front and try to shoot over to them- Jessica had taken off so fast, shot far away, and then shot several times in several directions- I really didn't know which way to head. If I tried to front suddenly, I had no idea which way to go before Jessica fronted again.

"So what are you going to try Raven? Force me down? Then I guess you try to look up the DNA profile of one of the boys so you can go back? And how long would that take?"

'A few minutes,' I said.

"And you sure you can force me to stay down that long?"

'Jessica we don't do this, we don't try to force control of the body, I don't even know what happens if we try. You don't know either.'

Jessica dropped to her bottom, looking at her scanner. "How sure are you that I'm wrong in what I'm doing?"

'You sure the boys can't be brought around?'

"Pretty sure. Besides, we would only have until this guy leaves to convince them- then the trail goes cold and we might as well move on." She sighed. "Raven, Justin is only three years old. You really think we can just walk away here?"

'And if Tyrin is following you? Then what?'

"I don't know..." Jessica paused, looking over her scanner. "The kidnapper's car is a stone's throw from here. Your choice, try to fight me – and who knows where that goes. But if you don't stop me I'm sneaking into that car and riding it- hopefully straight to Justin or someone who we can interrogate. This is a line, Raven. I am NOT leaving a child to die. I'm just not."

'You can't just do all this on your own- what about the society secrets? We can't run around threatening random people trying to find a kid.'

'I do NOT drop cases. I don't drop PEOPLE!'

'Jessica... you do this you could endanger the boys and J-Star, not to mention yourself. Jaden has kept everyone safe up until now but you're acting like a brat right now and this is not the time!' It was as though I was mentally screaming at her now.

'I will not leave a three-year-old kid in the hands of monsters. I'm not the monster here!' she was now thinking back to me instead of talking.

'I'm not standing down.' I said mentally.

'I'm not either.'

'Huh... guess we're doing this then.'

'What- what are you-'

'Biblioklept.'

I fronted and quickly closed my eyes, forcing myself into the mental world, dragging Jessica with me.

(***)

The mental world

A bright light showed as I felt cold air against my skin, my hair blowing as the rain came pouring down on me. I opened my eyes.

Jessica stood across from me, tears streaming out of her eyes. "You.... just step back and let me do this," she demanded, stomping her foot.

"No. You may be in my body-"

"It's no more your body than mine and you know that," she said.

"And who's trying to give orders again?"

"Really? I'm the one giving orders?" Jessica shouted. "You pulling this stunt cause you wanna just sit and talk? You have your own orders don't you?"

"Go back," I said slowly and deliberately.

I looked at her across the roof of a building, the rain soaking both of us, her eyes glaring daggers at me. Jessica stood there, her body covered in freckles, dressed in green pants and a red shirt, swords on her hips. Jessica deliberately pulled her version of Henry out of his sheath. "We're not here to talk, are we?" she asked.

I sighed, looking down at my stuffed bunny. "Jaden... what should I do?" I swallowed. "No, we're not here to talk." My swords flung themselves out of my scabbards and flew above my head. "Here it is Jess. Whoever would die in this battle- were it real- she concedes."

"Fine by me," Jessica said. "No holding back."

"We never do," I replied. In the distance thunder echoed out as we both shot into jumps, firing away at blinding speeds. I stopped dead before the edge of the building, holding up my right hand and snapping my fingers, electricity flowing away from my body and covering the building.

In the midst of the energy currently flowing over the building a mass of electric energy suddenly swirled like a small twister, getting larger and larger.

"Probably shouldn't have given her that much power to work with..." I said. Over time, we had discovered I was better at putting energy out, Jessica actually had better control, it just wasn't always apparent... well she did do multi-colored light displays at concerts, a thing I long since forgot how to do, so maybe we should have realized...

I turned to look at a door set above the roof. Jessica landed on it, having apparently jumped the entire distance. She held out both hands, two twisters now having formed on either side of her.

"So... you've been training..." I said. I wanted to send in one of my swords to strike her down, but it would have been easily intercepted. After that, I had the option to direct a bolt at her from one of the flying blades- but Jessica knew how to read my attacks.

The twisters were more shock, awe, and defense than an attack. Jessica needed a large amount of concentration to make them, but they would be effective if I tried to attack.

I glared and took off, running straight at Jessica, Henry, and Sally firing away from my left and right, zipping around the cyclones. I screamed, my swords curving around behind Jessica.

Jessica moved her arms, the cyclones moving behind her as I stomped my right foot on the ground near the base of the raised door, electric energy surging through the concrete and tearing it apart.

Jessica jumped off just in time, bolts firing off her body and forcing her fall to slow. I pointed at my Henry and Sally, who I had stopped before they entered the cyclones, with both hands, electricity firing away from me, hitting the swords and bouncing straight at Jessica as she was still landing.

The bolts flew at her and- curved around her as she shut off the bolts keeping her from falling, her twisters dissipating. Jessica fell to the floor as my attacking bolts arched around her and flew straight at me.

I barely even processed that she had redirected my attack before I was struck, my body disintegrating.

My body reformed and I looked down at Jessica. She laid on the roof, slowly rolling over. "Do you feel pain here? I don't." I said.

"I don't either- kinda nice to fight without pain... I just know I broke a lot of bones with that move- or would have."

"But... you would be alive."

Jessica stayed on her back, letting her arms sprawl out. "So I win. I call the shots today."

"That was a split second, I almost had you."

"I saw your tell..." she said, gasping for air. "Can't feel the pain, but I guess the gasping would happen either way."

"I figured you would see it- but you were in the air. Didn't think you'd have the time to redirect the attack like that."

"I had to try. It was a coin flip... I couldn't aim when redirecting that bolt so... if I missed..."

"I would have just fired again and won," I said.

Jessica held up a finger. "But I did. We find Justin."

The stuffed rabbit reappeared in my arms. "I'm sorry," I said, hugging it tightly. "Forgive me..."

(***)

The real world.

Jessica opened her eyes, a tear running down her right cheek- was it mine, or hers?

Jessica bit her lip. "If... if this isn't something we can pull off- we can always run back home. Not like a bunch of random thugs will know how to deal with the two of us. If you have a better idea of how to save Justin speak up. I assume you care about him too."

'I do- we're not the only people trying to find him, Jessica.'

"I. Won."

In our mind, I sighed. 'I know.' I gave in to a small mental chuckle. 'I wish we had taken our swords before we left... don't make us both regret this girl.'

(***)

Kyle:

I looked up at Jaden as he sighed. "So... we gonna track her or what?" I asked.

"Well... I mean she had the scanner right?" he asked back. "So how would we track her exactly? Better yet, I don't think she knows where mom set up our new home base so if we go home, she can't find us either as it's more than two miles from here. We're kinda stuck- I mean unless we abandon the van and walk she'll have no way to trace us if we leave. Can your wrist scanner track her?"

Jaden tossed me my backpack which had my own scanner. I shook my head. "It tracks electronic signatures so it's all kinds of useless over large distances in a city."

Jaden sat back and thought.

"We stay in place, we're a stationary target," J-star said.

"There's a chance we weren't followed, we take so many precautions, we could be in the clear for a while, but that's not our only concern," Jaden said. "That informant is being deployed to go back to Jacobson quickly. His mission is to secure a piece of Tyrin's clothing and get out. The banshees have promised his family will be safe and they really want one of our pharaohs to help on that point. Someone has to go. If we split our party here, whoever leaves is taking a risk and whoever remains- we'll have a hard time fighting if we're attacked."

J-Star nodded. "With Xao's pulse cannon, Kyle's electric bombs and close-range scanner- and even you have guns Jaden- you guys should be relatively able to fight off an ambush if it comes out here. Just stay low and hidden- we already have disguises. My invention is probably the best of the group- by a long shot at that. I can be alone. Are we supposed to rendezvous with the banshees somewhere?"

"J-Star..." Jaden shook his head.

"You know we can't just hold still here. Jessica is the one who flew off half-cocked like an idiot. You know how to get to me if things go south, but not her... C'mon Jaden. We have to chance something."

He clenched the steering wheel. "If I hadn't been so closed off, maybe she would have trusted me more and talked..."

"I go, what happens to me is my responsibility."

"No, I give you permission to go you're still my responsibility, Jess is the one on her own." He closed his eyes. "But we can't do nothing."