Joy and Patricia continued on through the forest, running as fast as they could through the darkness as their eyes adjusted. They heard some crackling behind them after a while and saw a blaze of orange bathing the trees and spreading throughout the forest.

"A fire," Joy observed. "Eddie's planning to burn us to death."

"Keep running," Patricia instructed.

They continued on through the forest.

~~~~~
Nina began to wake up. Her vision was hazy, and she probably had a concussion from the previous impact. Even though her vision was blurry and she couldn't yet lift herself up, she could see outside the door, which was left open, where Eddie stood outside. There was also something orange and red outside, but Nina couldn't tell what it was. She faded in and out of consciousness.

When she tried to lift herself up, she became really nauseous and her head began throbbing. She just laid back down on the ground after experiencing that.

"Rain," Nina heard a voice in her head whisper.

The voice really made her head hurt even more, and she wanted to scream out from the excruciating pain, but she found her self unable to speak.

"Rain, Nina."

Since when did the voices in her head know her name? Nevermind that; she just knew they were trying to tell her something about the rain. Maybe she should make it rain outside. But never had she manipulated the weather, and so she didn't understand how to.

Even so, she still tried. And even with her head throbbing as well as the rest of her body, she still tried. She hadn't gotten up from her flat position. She hoped she wouldn't have to, to cause rain to pour down. She focused on rain. How it happened, where it came from-she focused on the sky. And almost as though from an out-of-body experience, she felt herself as a cloud, and then as a raindrop, and then as a drop amongst a multitude of drops.

She heard the rain patter outside, growing heavier and heavier. The orange color she saw outside began to die down. Eddie was befuddled for quite some time before he had faced back towards her and came marching into the house.

Nina was still lying on the ground, helpless. Her head was throbbing even more now considering she had to exert so much force to manipulate the weather.

He flipped Nina over and made a javelin form in his hand. Nina saw it hovering above her, right over her chest.

"You..don't-want-to-do-this-Eddie," she struggled to say.

The javelin came speeding down towards her. She held her hands over her body as some sort of protection, and she heard the clash of the spear against some other metal. She realized she had made a shield appear in her hands to deflect the javelin.

Now realizing she'd used even more of her power to conjure that shield, she felt even weaker and ached even more. She knew that everything she did to spare her life resulted in more pain on her part. So, if Eddie continued to throw threats at her, she'd keep deflecting them, but in doing so, she'd hurt even more.

She decided to use the tactic of talking him out of harming her.

"Eddie," she gasped. "Eddie, I know you're still in there. And-and I don't care what that pocket watch said. You're not completely evil. Eddie, you're not evil. You have to listen to me. The Eddie-the Osirion-I know shouldn't be trying to kill me. He's my protector."

"Nice try," Eddie smirked. "But it would take more than that."

Eddie charged an orb in the palm of his hand. Nina knew this would be the end.

Before getting blasted, she said, "I'm sorry, Eddie. I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

~~~~~
Alfie saw the fire, and he also noticed when the rain began pouring down to put it out. He knew it had to Nina, and he figured he should head back to the house. Maybe by some miraculous happening, everything was solved and Eddie was brought back to normal.

He hurried back to the house. He figured the others were thinking the same and doing the same(they were, in fact, heading back to the house as well). He arrived before the rest of them, and upon entering the house, he saw Eddie looming over Nina.

"Hey!" he suddenly called out.

Eddie turned around.

"Why don't you aim that orb at someone your own size?!"

Eddie shot the orb at Alfie who squealed and ducked.

"Note to self, giant orbs of light are no longer cool," Alfie panted.

He kept dodging Eddie's shots at him until the others arrived, first Fabian, then Jerome and Amber, then Joy and Patricia. He was glad to see them back. Fabian acted fast and dived towards Nina while Eddie aimed an orb at the others. He quickly pulled out one of the obsidian necklaces.

"I hope this works," he breathed as he slid it around Nina's neck.

He backed up out of the way to see what would happen. At first, nothing did, but then Nina hovered and lifted herself upright, now floating in the air. Here eyes flashed from solid black back to their natural color. Her entire body began to glow a bluish color. Eddie faced her, hesitating a bit.

Nina sent waves of black smoke out of her hand which formed to become smoke-warriors. As Eddie battled them, he began becoming more and more helpless. The warriors disappeared as Nina shot black orbs at Eddie which sent him flying backwards.

He got up to his feet, stumbling a bit. That was only a fraction of what Nina could actually do. The others could actually see the determination in Nina's eyes. It almost seemed as a determination to kill.

"Make sure you don't give in to the dark power!" Fabian yelled.

Nina could hear him, but the dark power building up inside her conflicted with her comprehension of the outside world. She caused a swirling mass of smoke, a tornado, to encircle her and Eddie. Eddie took that moment to rush towards Nina and grab the necklace, but before he could tear it off, Nina grabbed his wrist which caused something else to happen.

The tornado had stopped, but the chaos hadn't. The entire house interrupted into an earthquake while Eddie and Nina's conscious states were tossed into another realm. Their bodies were still in the house though it felt as though they were elsewhere.

They ended up in Osiris' den, the place where Eddie had rescued Nina when Apep had taken her. Everything was calm there. Neither Eddie or Nina were trying to kill eachother. They just stood facing eachother.

"Is this a vision during our battle?" Eddie asked.

"I think so," Nina responded. "I think we're currently in the process of trying to kill eachother."

"But how is this possible? How is it that I'm not evil right now?"

"Because it's actually you and me, Eddie," Nina explained. "Like I said before, Eddie isn't evil."

"So, you knew. You knew all this time?"

"Of course. I don't care what evilness takes over your body, you'll still be in there."

"So," Eddie pondered, "how do we get me to not be evil and crazy back there in the real world?"

"That, I don't know."

Meanwhile, while Nina and Eddie were tossed into the vision, Jerome immediately thought of his dagger. It was just an instinct that suddenly came to him. And he just let his instinct do the work since he had no idea what he was actually doing.

In the midst of the quaking house, he made his way to his room to get the dagger. Whatever he was about to use it for, he didn't know, but something told him to go get it.

And if he felt as though he should, it must be important.

~~~~~
What will happen next? Oh, this question is just aggravating, isn't it?

At least Nina isn't dead.

What might Jerome have to use the dagger for?

Stay tuned for the rest of the battle and what happens afterwards. You won't want to miss it!