Trials, Traits and Truth

Deception

Patton tensed, suddenly realising that Pitch had returned from...where ever he had gone. He panicked for a second, but managed to control himself.

"It's not been twelve hours yet." He focused on completely deadpanning his tone.

Every flair of emotion or expression from Patton was reflected back on him with such a force that it hurt. Patton had learned very quickly into his his prison time that even the force of positivity could pack a mean punch.

Pitch looked a little thrown off, but there was a mischievous grin on his face.

"Someone's managed to find us."

The rush of hope and terror left Patton winded and gasping for breath. Pitch approached him, almost skipping. Patton recoiled and closed his eyes.

"This wasn't apart of my plan, but a lil improv never hurt anyone, eh, Patton?"

Patton looked up and met Pitch's eyes, as he waved his hand dramatically...a side appeared and fell into the gestured area.

"NO." Patton yelled, upon seeing a flash of purple clothing. He started to panic - of all the sides, Virgil was the sickest, and the least in control of his emotions. If Pitch had him in one of these prisons...

Virgil had to run. Now.

The intensity of all these feelings caused a wave of pain that drew fresh tears out of the tired Father Figure, as he curled into a ball. His knuckles were white, he squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.

Calm down...show no feeling...

Dimly, he could hear talking...

Patton thought he could hear Virgil pleading...

Pitch explaining...

The pain grew in a crushing crescendo and his ears started ringing. If Virgil thought his prescene was causing Patton's pain...the kid would blame himself...

Patton fainted, the pain finally becoming too much for him to bear.

"Aaaaaand he's gone." Pitch gloated gleefully, looking like Christmas had come early, as he watched Patton slump ungracefully into unconsciousness.

Virgil balled his fists and started to shake with anger.

"What do you want?"

Tristan watched carefully, unseen in his corner, shrouded in Pitch's darkness.

"I want Thomas to finally listen to Reality." Pitch started slowly walking around Virgil, and Virgil moved to make sure that his enemy was always directly in his line of sight. They were locked in an intense predator/prey dance, and Virgil was sure that Pitch could hear his erratic heartbeat.

"Skip the dramatics, Princy ain't here." Virgil scoffed, mentally checking Patton out from the corner of his eye. He had the vague shape of a plan, even though it was a desperate one. He only had one goal today, and that was to set Patton and Tristan free.

"How is Romano doing?" Pitch mocked. "Feeling a bit stressed, I see? He's got to stop working so hard, he'll be grey by thirty...oh wait..."

"Enough chit-chat. Give me Patton and Tristan, and leave Thomas be." Virgil tried to sound more confident than he felt.

"Thomas needs me. You've all failed for far too long - poor Tristan had to split and form on his own for any of you to even start paying attention to Thomas." Pitch's voice was low and light, his eyes glinting malevolently.

"Where is Tristan?"

"You don't want to see him, therefore you don't."

"That is illogical reasoning." Virgil rolled his eyes.

In his corner, Tristan cocked his head and frowned thoughtfully.

The two opponents came to a halt, almost simultaneously. Virgil was positioned so he had his back to Patton, blocking him from Pitch's view somewhat.

"You said this thing reflects feelings as a force?" Virgil gestured behind him to where Patton lay. Pitch nodded, and Virgil had to work hard not to let the swoop of concern his stomach experienced leak onto his face: Patton was literally the one out of all of them that felt the most...no wonder he had fainted, the pain must have been awful.

"I want to make a deal."

Pitch looked as if he was about to start skipping.

"Go on."

"Me for him."

Pitch didn't even hesitate. He appeared barely an inch from Virgil's nose and the pair shook hands.

Virgil blinked, and was suddenly on the ground where Patton had, just a second ago, been. Patton lay before him, waking up. He groggily lifted his head and looked from Virgil's somber expression to Pitch's sadistically happy one, and his eyes widened in horror.

He got to his knees, still feeling too shaky to stand.

"No...no! Pitch switch us back!" He begged.

"I don't think so. You're done for now, Daddy-o, Pitch's got himself a new toy! And it's all because you couldn't make a tough decision fast enough...will you admit Thomas needs Reality now?" Pitch waved his hand, cackling, and a devastated Patton disappeared.

He then turned, still laughing, to where Virgil crouched on the ground and looked at him with a hungry expression.

In his corner, Tristan looked incredibly conflicted.

~

Patton gasped as he appeared...in another dark room. The darkness didn't feel so empty here: just pleasantly warm.

There was a blue door in front of him and he all but ran towards it, craving any kind of light.

He stumbled into Logan's room and looked behind him as the door slammed shut, glowed, and reverted back to it's usual brown hue.

"That's where he had us." Patton mumbled.

There were large spaces in between the defined areas of the mindscape...it was where the highways of thoughts, chemicals, and information ran through. In short, it's where the nerdy stuff lived. It was a place that was easy to manipulate, but you could just as easily get lost, so Patton had never really explored it.

Remembering himself, he ran into the living room in search of Roman or Logan. He was in tears, craving a hug, and gave in to a sob. Patton suddenly felt very overcome with everything...and it didn't help that no one seemed to be around.

Something moved on the couch, and Patton clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from making noise: obviously Roman was asleep, and he didn't want to disturb him.

He heard footsteps behind him and Patton couldn't help but gasp as he swung around...half expecting Pitch to be there.

Instead, he saw a completely grey-scale Roman in the doorway, holding two glasses of water. He looked as though his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

"Patton?" He managed dumbly in a whisper. Patton could only manage a sniffle and a small nod. He turned back around with fresh concern - Logan hated the idea of sleeping on a couch if there was a bed (something about not using something for its original purpose), which could only mean that Logan had finally fallen victim too...

He gazed at the sleeping side and felt a nauseating swoop of relief and confusion, which he immediately pushed down.

There, snoozing soundly, though still deathly pale, was Virgil.