I slowly began walking forwards. The storm crackled above me, but I hardly noticed. My brain was buzzing perfectly in tune with itself and I was deadly focused.

"I wasn't the nicest person," I said slowly. I wasn't shouting, but somehow, I got the sense that the Destroyer could hear me. "I had no friends. I was awkward and alone, for most of my life."

The Destroyer's eyes narrowed, not sure what I was driving at.

"But then I met these people," I continued, "and since then, I've changed. See, it's easy to be alone and fade into the background. It's easy to keep to yourself and only lash out. It's way too easy to push others away. But that's not what life is for."

The Destroyer sneered. "I don't need you petty speeches. Your empty, clichè words mean nothing to me."

"They're clichè because they've been said again and again, and they've been said again and again because they're true," I said, still walking. My body was beginning to pulse with a strange sort of power I could feel in the pit of my stomach.

The Destroyer clenched his fists. "I'm through with you," he growled. He raised a hand and another chunk of the floor came hurtling at me.

My eyes widened, but suddenly it burst into pebble sized pieces and hit the floor.

An emotion I couldn't quite read flashed across the Destroyer's face. It looked like...nervousness.

I kept walking. My feet felt like lead but I kept moving. "I've been wondering for a while why you did this. Why you destroyed things. And to be perfectly honest, I'm still not sure. But there's one thing I'm willing to bet, and that's that you don't have many friends."

"You are an insolent child!" he roared. The wind swelled to a scream, and the Destroyer began to glow slightly red.

So he reacted. I must be right.

"I know I can't do this," I shouted over the wind, "but sometimes I just wish I could show you. Show you friendship. See how it changes you."

My body was throbbing harder and harder, and I felt energized, more energized than I had in a long time.

The Destroyer's face twisted in rage, and the red glow swelled. I felt a pang of sadness. I remembered what it was like to feel disconnected. To be irritable. And honestly, it was so awful. You don't realize how awful it is until you're reflecting on it, but I had been unhappy all my life.

And I felt bad for this man.

He had never loved anything. And never knowing love was the worst feeling in the world.

I became vaguely aware of a brilliant golden light in my peripheral, but my face was focused on the Destroyer. I focused on the rage in his face.

And then I poured out my soul.

It felt like I had opened a flood gate. The golden light got brighter and brighter. Every inch, every fiber of my being yearned to help this man understand the feeling of love. I wanted to help him. I wanted him to know how it felt.

I lost sense of everything.

I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I could only feel. Pity for him. Wanting him to love.

I could suddenly feel something else pushing against me. The Destroyer, or at least, whatever that red light around him was. I tentatively prodded it with my mind and immediately recoiled. It was so ANGRY. I remembered Sierra, and how she said Giselle was the embodiment of hate.

Could he be the embodiment of anger?

Something still confused me. WHY was he angry? WHY did Giselle hate so much? I understood Giselle's backstory, but it didn't explain the incredible concentration of hate, so incredible that it oozed out of her as literal magic.

So what made the Destroyer so angry?

I probed deeper. Anger is a strange thing. It's hot and bubbly, like boiling water, but at the same time, constantly shifting and uncomfortable. I couldn't imagine living in it all the time. It would be exhausting.

And then I sensed something different. It was harder than the anger, smaller than the anger, but very, very firm. I reached out for it.

It was cold. Uncomfortably so. The texture was uncomfortable too. Maybe slimy?

I wrapped my mind around it and my stomach clenched. I began to shake, or maybe my mind did. It was hard to say.

This. What was this?

The cold began to spread up my mind tentacles, but I exerted my will and pushed back. It trickled off, but I was left with and uncomfortable prickly feeling like goosebumps.

I decided enough was enough. I pushed the Destroyer's will back. It was too easy. I ripped it so shreds. It practically dissolved.

The glow slowly faded. I starting floating back towards the floor, and it was only then that I realized I had been floating in the first place.

The Destroyer was slumped over in his throne, passed out. I looked at him, still in a bit of a daze. Then I remembered something. "His gloves," I said quickly, "get his gloves."

Isaac understood immediately and rose on his knees, quickly tugging off the gloves and throwing them across the room. I nodded.

"Ravi!" I turned barely in time to see Sierra barrel into me and envelop me in a hug. I stumbled a bit, then slowly hugged her back. She released me quickly, smiling. "That was so brave," she whispered.

I smiled quickly. "Thanks," I said, "but we aren't done yet." I looked around the room. "Where's Damius?"

"Knocked out in a side room," she replied, "why?"

"I'm going to get him," I said. "I have an idea. Try to release them." I strode off in the direction she had come from.

I felt weird. I felt like I should have been tired from transforming so quickly, but after the weird golden light thing, I felt amazingly refreshed.

And the room was weirdly quiet.

I peeked into a side room and immediately flinched. All the Tormentors and Tempters were in there, hanging in cages from the ceiling. Some thrashed in their confines while others sat eerily still. I shuddered, but since I didn't see Damius, I quietly left the doorway.

I suddenly heard loud shouts from the other room. I frowned and began walking briskly back. I heard a scream and began to run.

My friends had tackled something, Audrey, Deynan, and Sierra in full warrior mode. I ran up. "What's going on?" I asked breathlessly.

"We caught a rat trying to steal some gloves," Audrey snarled.

I looked down at the man. It was clearly Damius. He was thinner than I remembered from the dreams, his mustache bigger in person. His eyes regarded us with...distaste. As if we were food that was a bit too sour.

"Those gloves are dangerous," I said. I looked at Sierra. "We should destroy them as soon as possible." She nodded, moving towards them.

Damius smiled.

I frowned. "Wait."

"There's a ton of magic packed into those gloves," Sophie said quietly. "If you destroy them, all that magic might spill out, and since it's destructive magic...well."

Damius scowled, and I knew she was right.

"Who are you?" I muttered, looking at Damius.

His smirk returned. "I am the walker, the wanderer, the black cat, the shadow. I am everything you never see."

"Cut it with the riddle crap," Deynan growled, pressing harder down on his chest.

"You've been influencing the Destroyer a long time," I guessed. "You have these weird psychic powers that allow you to control the Tempters and Tormentors and possess Giselle. Somehow, you've talked the Destroyer into all these things."

He didn't react, and I pressed on.

"When I was fighting the Destroyer, I felt his anger," I said, crouching down next to Damius. "But somewhere in the middle, there was something else." I squinted. "And I'm wondering if you put it there."

Sierra gasped as Damius raised an eyebrow. My brow furrowed. "We've been hunting the wrong villain this entire time."

"The opposite of love..." Sierra muttered.

"Isn't hate," I continued. "It's..." I frowned, closing my eyes. I tried to remember what it felt like. Small, dense, and so, so cold. Slimy. Uncomfortable. Creeping.

My eyes opened with a gasp. "Fear," I whispered.

Damius looked at me, unamused.

"Oh my gosh," Sierra gasped.

"You've been manipulating him this whole time, haven't you?" Audrey said angrily. "You've been using fear to manipulate him."

"Yes." His expression didn't change.

"You're disgusting," Deynan spat.

"He's the opposite of love?" Isaac asked hesitantly.

My eyes narrowed. "No." I stood up. "No, it's not him. He isn't fear." I sighed. "He's just a tool."

"Wonderful!" Audrey exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "There's a worse guy out there. Why not?"

Then Sierra tensed. "Do you feel that?" she whispered.

And then we heard a shriek.

We spun around in unison to see the entire army of Tempters and Tormentors hurtling straight towards...us.