AN/:Right where we left off.

A little food for thought :)

-------

Thomas looks confused at the Twins, eyes continuously sliding from Prince to Duke. "I get that you're Twins but Roman's the older one right? Shouldn't he be the Tertiary Personality and Remus the uh...Quad...Quaternary?"

Before anyone could answer the Host continued. "Hey wait, what's the actual order you guys are placed under? I mean like, Anxiety's the youngest right? What's his rank? How do you choose ranks anyway? If you can choose them, I mean."

The Personality's looked at each other and then back at Thomas.

Deceit answers and he does so with a wicked smile.

"Well we don't choose our Ranks, that's for sure. Take the 'highest' Rank, the Prominent, for example. Note that it's sometimes considered a Title depending on who you ask, but it means the same thing, the one with the most power and control." The Serpent the gestures to Patton. "Now to confuse you, Ranks are actually quite arbitrary. See if something were to happen to the Prominent, who do you think would be next in line for the succession?"

"Uh-"

"Well if Pops bites the dust the dust", jumps in Remus, "the 'Prominent' schtick goes to whoever the hell has the most control over Tommy-thinks-he's-smart!" The Duke shrugs, a giddy look on his face, "If you don't know that would be V..."

In the span of seconds Anxiety and Deceit's eyes widen. The latter was preparing to silence his opposite but Remus continued much too quickly.

"very much Anxiety over there"

Both Dark Sides let out a silent sigh.

Remus gives Anxiety a sheepish shrug and reaches rather stealthily around to give him a soft pat on his shoulder with a tentacle in apology for almost outing him.

The Emo thankfully lets it slide.

He shrugs it off, but it's clear he was still jittery over the close call.

Janus clears his throat.

"Well then, was that the answer you wanted Thomas? No? Oh did you want us to reveal our Ranks so you could figure out how many sides you have? Hmm?"

The Manifestor shrinks in on himself, face red at having been caught.

Deceit however, wasn't going to let his Host off so easily. "I'm feeling much appreciated by this Thomas. Abuse of power and trust early in the morning goes perfectly with waffles, don't you think?"

"Hey, I didn't mean-"

"Oh, you didn't mean it? Did you ever think there's a reason we're not telling you how many Personalities you have?"

"I mean-"

The Scaled Side cuts him off before he can continue, he even silences the others for good measure. "There must be a reason right? And it absolutely kills you not knowing, hmm?"

"Well I-"

"You want to know so badly! Am I right?"

Thomas sighs, knowing Deceit won't let him speak.

"I'm not though, am I. You were lying "

"What!" Exclaims the Manifestor upset, "what are you-"

"You're lying Thomas. You said you wanted to find out about your Sides. But you don't, not really.

You're afraid. You're afraid of what they might represent. You're afraid that you may not be that perfect and pure person you thought you are, no?"

"Hey, no, stop it-" Thomas' breathing was starting to pick up

"Why should I? I'm telling you the truth, of all ironies! You don't want to know because you don't want to deal with the consequences of finding out"

"No, I-"

"A Side is formed from the core parts of a Manifestor, so what are you trying to bury about yourself, hmm? If you truly wanted to know, I would've been down for it and had called it a day from the beginning, but yet I'm here, the embodiment of Deceit and Denial...why?"

Janus pushes the poor Manifestor until Thomas silences him.

"Enough!"

Thomas grits his teeth, squeezing his eyes closed as he pants. When he opens them, he reels back in horror.

All six of Deceit's hands were pressing, no doubt painfully against his own mouth. The Personality, however, looked very smug despite the fact and it caused the Manifestor's stomach to roll.

Janus removes all of his hands from his mouth. "See Thomas? You have a say in what goes. If you truly wanted to know..."

"Then I would", finishes the Host forlornly. "Sorry...about blowing up at you I mean." He sighs. "I see that I have a lot to learn"

Deceit shrugs, " So long as the lesson is learned..., no harm, no foul Thomas. Now, about that other question of yours." Janus points at his fellow Sides with a hand each. "Us Personalities balance each other out, hence why we call each other 'Opposites': we're all each other's opposite. As for our Ranks, those are determined by what we represent and by their importance is to the Host."

Said Host slightly tilts his head in confusion.

"Wait, if it goes by the most important, then how come Logan isn't the Prominent? Think about it!" Motions the Host as he points at Logan. "Logic and common sense would help me gain knowledge in daily life!" He then points to Patton; "That knowledge I use to figure out what's right and wrong." He points to Janus; "from there I learn how I'm supposed to behave in a society and how it works and what I can do to work it to my favor." The Manifestor takes in a quick breath before continuing,"as for my creativity...uh creativities", he gestures to the Twins, " they should help me function as a well rounded individual with ideas that could help myself, my loved ones and or my community!"

Thomas turns, happy with himself for pointing out the roles of his Sides...he then glances at the Youngest. "An-and my Anxiety-"

"Hinders all of that-", cuts said Personality. The Emo seemed to shrink in on himself, haunched in a way that made him look small but still somehow intimidating at the same time.

"Protects me from the dangers that are around me", Thomas says sternly.

Anxiety's face flushes slightly and he shrugs nonchalantly but no one could miss the little smile at the corner of his lips.

Logan clears his throat. "Allow me to explain how Personalities are ranked Thomas. You know that each Personality has an individual Name along with a Title. Those Titles can be shared, as you see with the Twins or they can be shared in subsections as in Deceit and Anxiety for Self- Preservation. Ranks are determined by how much relative control one has over their Title. Because Ranks are for the Title, it is not a true depiction overall of...say 'power level' for lack of a better term." The Secondary Personality then narrows his eyes at Deceit. "As such, it's not 'importance that depicts Rank but relevance and specifically, relevance to the Host. Like Remus said, if Morality were to perish, the next Prominent would not be me, but Anxiety as he is the one who holds more sway over your decisions majority of the time"

For a moment the room went quiet.

"Fuck!"

Remy had accidentally spilled his coffee.

The Guardian grunts, scooting back to attempt to clean his mess, but before he could, he's asleep by enough pain to send him to his knees. The Aspect bites back a scream, pressing his hand against his pounding head as images from his restoring memories come pouring in.

---

Flashes of a face...

The purple mist was swirling in the inky sky.

That laugh...

The Dream Tower crumbled.

Those screams...

---

"Are you alright?"

Remy blinks, only to find Deceit in front of him, he swallows dryly and nods.

The Snake doesn't look the least bit convinced. Instead he sighs and offers him a hand up. "Was it the memories?" He asks, "is remembering that painful?"

Remy nods, gritting his teeth. He hated feeling this week and pained.

The spilt coffee cleaned by magic, evaporated into disappearing vapor.

Anxiety frowns in confusion as he glances between the Scaled Side and the Aspect that looked ready to pass out. "So Deceit", he questions, "how do you know so much about all this memory wiping business? And what memory did Remy lose in the first place?"

Janus starts, having not expected the Youngest to have attempted to speak to him, given that he had almost inadvertently outed him via Remus. Though, he's quick to recover and in a blink his crafted facade was back in place.

The Serpent tacks on a smirk and mock bows, tilting slightly at the waist. "Well sleeping beauty, while you three were snoozing" he gestures to Anxiety and the two halves of Creativity," the Dream Keeper woke to tell the the rest of us that he had spoken with the Dragon Witch and even managed to glean her location from the subconscious, however, that and a rough plan is all he managed to tell us before he had fallen unconscious again"

The Emo as he crosses his arms. "Uh-huh, care to share that plan, or are you just going to keep us guessing?"

----

"So...", whistles out Anxiety after having been given a brief explanation. "Should we try to find the kid after we destroy that machine or what? Cause, I guarantee that's gonna come back and bite us if we don't"

"He's got a point!" Pipes Remus, "besides, if he was shot out of the subconscious, he'd have to be mangled or deformed as fuck right? I gotta see that!"

"Well we don't know the full story, he could have been regular looking for all we know", mutters Roman.

Remy winces at that, "I'll show you guys the full memory as soon as I can, well remember it"

Deceit tsks, "yes do continue to push yourself Dream Keeper. We definitely want to see you pass out from an energy deficit"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, sheesh. Who called the 'Self-care Queen?" Muttered the Aspect, crossing his arms with a slight huff.

Janus rolls his eyes.

"I think it's best that we all, especially Thomas, know what the Dragon Witch was like in order to be prepared." He received a few nods and 'fair-enough' shrugs, so he continued with an eye-roll and a sighed click of his tongue. "I lived the longest with her, so I'll tell my tale first, then Patton and Logan, followed by Roman and Remus. We can try to fill in the pieces the others may have missed, how's that sound?"

The Primary, Secondary and Tertiaries mumbled in agreement. Anxiety, Thomas and Remy couldn't do anything more than shrug and settle to listen to the stories.

"Before we start, Thomas" says the Serpentine Side smoothly, "I would like to inform you that the Dragon Witch hated us all equally and considered us as useless emotions-"

The Host's brow furrows. "Even if you were Personalities?"

Patton suddenly sucks an audible breath through his teeth. "See, that's the thing Kiddo. We didn't even know we were Personalities then. As a matter of fact, none of us knew what Personalities were until you were told about them in school"

"What?! But that doesn't make sense?!"

"Yes well, your Mindscape is a fickle space. We all called ourselves emotions because that's all we were told. But instinctively we knew we were different from the rest and when we met", Janus gestures to the Elder Sides and the Twins; "we knew we were alike but not why...not until you learned what we were from school and therefore we had a name to it"

The Manifestor frowns further, still trying to wrap his head around the dynamics of the Mindscape. "Ok then, other than Title and Name, how did you use to identify yourselves within a group or something?"

Roman perks up, listing on his fingers, "Emotions, Figments, Aspects and Personalities all have different auras-"

"And then there's the fact that our ability and power levels are way different. By comparison, us Sides are OP as fuck", cuts in Remus cackling.

"Huh, that's weird, but ok...wait." Thomas snaps his head up. "I just realized something. If Anxiety is the youngest and I first noticed him when I was just starting my teens. How long ago was this war?! How does your age work?"

"Um", starts Roman sheepishly scratching his neck, "time here is kinda messed up? Technically this all started when you were like a toddler and your aura depicted you as a Manifestor. We formed as kind of blank adults? Like really tall teens at the least? If that makes sense? While you were learning, we were learning too but not in the same way. The subconscious just told us things. Like our names and titles and such."

"Yeah, I can vouch for this one." Buts in Anxiety, "I was first formed when you were about thirteen-and-a-half and to me that felt like two years ago. Time is trippy, but it's an illusion anyway so...yeah." He shrugs, "right now we're all your age but we consider each other 'older' in the sense that you can say that your best friend is two months older than you or something, same level, same age, just...older and younger. Make sense?"

"Uhh, I guess? Must have been more confusing for you guys than it is for me, right?"

"No, not really", they all said in unison.

Thomas cringed. Why was his life so complicated?

---

Breakfast was cleared away and everyone moved to the living room, which somehow now had enough space for all of them to sit comfortably; on the chaise and loveseat alike.

A lone, pink armchair was placed in the middle of the room.

Chuckling, Janus sat in it, offering a smirk to the smiling Fairy on the love seat to his left.

Remus sat beside her and Roman infront of him, with Remy taking the last spot in front of the Prince. On the right side of the Serpentine Personality, sitting on the chaise was Thomas, Anxiety, Logan and then Patton.

Deceit preened internally, he could get used to being the center of attention, at least for a little while that is.

"Well then", he smirked, "shall we begin~?"

----

AN:Hey guys! Hope y'all are staying safe.

So sorry this chap is short, I had to scramble to retype it again because the chapter got deleted off my phone.

Ya girl here is stressed. Classes start tomorrow and they're all online now because my Island is once again on lock down. To make matters worse, two of my classes clashed and the system kicked me out so I'm missing two whole classes that I'm gonna have to magically add somehow🙃

Anyway, with school starting up, expect later updates? Don't get me wrong, it's still going to be every second sunday, just later in the evening. Gotta prioritize!

Wish me luck!

COMMENT OF THE WEEK:

BY

"Brilliant as always! I'm sorry about your grandma even though she sounds like a massive bitch. :/ I didn't think you could fit anymore reasonable plot twists in the story but you DID. Cause now Janus was friends with the girls before Roman and Remus freed the kingdoms but was also a traitor son and lapdog of DW herself. Absolutely wild."

Yeah RIP Grans :/

And lol thanks, there are more surprises to come but I wouldn't call them plot twists so much as they are just the regular twists and turns of the angst train. That being said...hehehe >:3

PUN OF THE WEEK:

BY mochi/ari

> had this conversation with my friends just because of a typo:

> Me: At the end of the day we are all human beans

> Friend 1: And together, we will rice

> Friend 2: Lettuce pray

> Me: Ramen

Lmaooo 😂 I loved this!

See you all in the comments section and on the discord!