The boy is too risky, he feels no fear. 

                                                                                        Perfect.

Joy and I, we didn't feel your presence anymore. We knew something was up, but first thing’s first, we had to ensure Grim didn't get your cutie mark... for whatever reasons.

On the sheen of the Gym's polished floor, my body stumbled to its knees without my presence. Eyes dilated, I stared through space itself as an uncontrollable trembling brought me to the floor, where I resumed my stroke, throwing Kill and Joy to the ground.

"Joy, what happened?! Where's Graze?" Kill frantically panicked, gazing at the side of the lifeless vessel. "Is he dying?!"

"Calm down, Kill, he's not dying!" Joy scolded beside his brother, recovering from the fall. "The body is just going through a nervous breakdown from the sudden removal of a host," the angel explained with a sigh, retrieving his golden halo from the floor.

"So, what do we do?" Kill asked.

"We continue with the plan: Fight as Graze would. Grim said something about him being in his fear, and if I remember correctly, that's somewhere deep in his subconscious... wherever that is. I'd have to look for it," Joy explained, taking command as he was supposed to if such an emergency, being the more responsible and older of the two.

"So let me get this straight, if I am reading you correctly," the mischievous one coughed in hopes that their sibling telepathy paid off. "While you're going through the Map of Machinations, I distract?"

"Yes, you keep up offense until I find wherever Graze has been spirited away to--because you're good at that--and when I do, we switch to defense until you find Graze, got it?" Joy asked for clarification, gripping tightly onto his brother's shoulder, both with discomfort drawn upon their faces. "I know it's--"

"Dangerous? Life risking?" Kill interrupted his sibling.

"I was going to say 'a gamble', but yes... the faster we find Graze, though, the better, right?"

"Hmph, and I'm supposed to be the bad influence," Kill commented as he possessed my body, laying still as he awaited further instruction from a stressed Joy.

"Don't worry, if things get out of hoof, we’ll switch, alright? We are the perfect combination of offense and defense, what could go wrong?" The angel hopefully reassured his younger brother who simply refused to respond, both knowing the consequences of a loss from this rash action.

Sighing in distress, Joy looked up before vanishing, his thoughts on a single, hopeful prayer to the Princesses. He shook his head and said, "We may not be real, but guide us, Celestia and Luna. We know this stallion isn’t right. Protect Graze."

I didn't like the idea.Joy didn't either, but for your sakes, we did it. So far, everything was going according to plan; I played dead--in control of your body--and Grim had fallen for it.

On opposite ends of the Gym, the clothed Grave pony, Grim, sat on his haunches as he spoke a word or two to himself. "Hmph, two minutes is enough time for the spell to fully take over his mind. Oh well, time to gather my winnings."

The stallion then whistled quite an upbeat tune in his victory, something too joyous for the likes of him as he approached my dormant body. Such a happy tune, ruined by the melancholy lyrics of the melody... something quite fitting for a stallion of his likes.

"--So I dug one thousand holes

And cut a rug with orphan foals.

Memories are blurred,

And their faces are obscured,

But I still know the words to this song--" 

He quickly reverted to humming, probably having forgotten the rest of the lyrics.

His body shadowing mine, Grim glared at me, petrified from the effects of his mental straining spell. "Alas, Graze, it was a short battle. I could say that you tried your best, but we all know that's a terrible lie," he monologue’d one of those villainous speeches—the ones where they themselves are too distracted by their own blimp-sized ego to notice the protagonist lining up to drop-kick them in the throat. "Can't say that I didn’t expectthis from a pegasus--such a brash nature of your kind, rushing into battle without a strategy," he continued, releasing a forgotten breath as he shook his head from the expected hilarity of the situation. "And that is why unicorns will always be on top of the food chain, because we can actually think."

Kill and Joy simultaneously rolled their eyes in bemuse at his boring speech. "Have I ever spoken to you guys like that? Like, have I ever lectured you or Graze?" Joy questioned his brother, uncertain of his own nagging ways.

"Yeah, but he's much worse," Kill's voice grunted in emphasis on the last word. "Can we surprise attack him now? I've finally got control over the body, and he's like, right above us. Seriously, he's annoying."

"Be my guest," Joy gave way to his impatient brother.

Astonished, Grim flinched as the still body suddenly came to life with a blink of an eye, being possessed by one of the consciences.

In the moment of a flash did Kill anchor a foreleg to the polished grounds, sweeping Grim off his hooves, tripping the stallion. Suspended in midair, he was met with another hind leg buck to the stomach and launched to the opposite end of the gym. With a sickly smile did Kill observe the stallion whinny in pain, gripping to his stomach, coughing, desperately attempting to recover.

"Yeah, we may be brash, but we're also fast, cunning and drop-dead gorgeous," Kill boasted aloud, pushing off the ground with a flap of his wings onto his hooves. "You see what I did there? 'Drop dead?' The whole Grave pony, death thing?" Grim coughed out the pain as he held onto his chest, recovering from the hit. "Ah, forget it, you'll get the joke later."

With heavy breaths and a death glare--another one to add to the too many Kill had become immune to--Grim asked but one question. "H-how?! How did you escape Paranoia so quickly?!"

"'Paranoia'? Isn't that a fitting name for a cute, harmless spell," Kill bluffed, angering the stallion even more. "Well, you know, when we--urhm, I said that I didn't fear anything, I was actually telling the truth... not even death," he admitted, this time the truth.

Having traded places with Grim, now being the victorious stallion on the offense, Kill progressed through the vacant arena towards his opponent, a slightly more hilarious take on monologuing as he stalled for Joy. Everything was going according to plan. "And also, I don't think gentlecolts--as we said we'd have been--would approve of this rapscallion-like behavior, you know? It's bad, wrong, and unhealthy for our testosterone levels."

Kill raised his foreleg, about to stomp on the stallion's face, without a care for Grim's hospital bill. "Forgive me, but I must keep my promise to break your snout," Kill teasingly said overdramatically with a heavy and false heart.

"You said that to Dumbbells, not me," Grim stoically corrected the conscience, laying on the floor as he patiently awaited his torturous beating.

"Oops! I forgot that a bashful pegasus such as myself is not supposed to be as smart a unicorn, my mistake," Kill shrugged with his wings, rearing up to stomp with aim for his snout.

"Yes, your mistake, indeed." Grim's horn suddenly glowed with a transparent coat of sparkling greyish-blue aura, catching Kill off guard and discharging it square into his chest, blinding him through the immense transitions.  

It really was my mistake, a terrible one on my part... I was too caught up in my own teasing way that I'd given Grim the chance to conjure a plan. He was using his unicorn magic to cheat, teleporting us outside of the gym to evade my attack... but, he'd make one fatal mistake... we were outside.

It had been one of Grim's teleportation spells--though unlike a regular unicorn's quick flash, this particular burst of magic was accompanied by a sickly green haze.

Kill coughed, covering his mouth with the jacket's sleeve as if some sort of filtration system to properly breathe, unsure if the gas was toxic or not. He squinted through the thick, foul air as he came to his knees.

"Grim has taken the privilege of being a unicorn to use nasty tricks to get the edge on us. We can't be too sure with that stallion, Kill!" Joy forewarned within the thoughts of the vessel. "It's time to use our priviledge of flight and free us from this haze!"

Still holding his breath, Kill furiously flapped his wings, parting the thick haze that had nearly brought him to suffocation, diffusing it harmlessly into the air around him, finally regaining his rightful ability to breathe. He desperately gasped, fighting for that luscious, clean oxygen to purify his systems.

Eyes red, set in a daze from Grim's stunt, Kill endured the pain--something akin to shampoo getting in one’s eyes--and attempted to open them. Wincing from the stinging sensation, he laid on the concrete grounds with the sun beating against his back. He finally mustered enough energy and look up.

Before him stood five stallions. All of them, Grim.

"Tag out, Kill. Now!" Joy’s voice echoed with a stern demand. "I know what you're thinking, and this not a mind trick... they are all magical clones of Grim. You're suffering from the vision distortment, not me," the angel quickly presented his reason to prevent the brother from opposing him.

Joy's motion was futile. "But, I can take them on!" Kill fought back.

"Dammit, Kill! Listen to me for once!" Joy scolded his brother. "If you fight them now, you're good as dead... and I can't allow that to happen, you understand me?"

Kill was silent, unsure for the safety of his brother, as was the other. Both wanted the same thing. "I'll hide in a few clouds or something, don't worry... but knowing you, I’d rather hold this body down than lose you to that guy. You very well know what can happen, and there is no reason to act so rash!"

Joy and myself knew that the body needed to have a general consensus to function. 50/50 is how it works without you in place, Graze... so, I had to give in. Ironically, Joy was pretty serious.

A few moments of intense silence between the two brothers, and Kill finally gave into the pressure of his older brother. "Argh! Fine, but just so you know, you’re only five seconds older than me!" He exclaimed, giving control of the body over to Joy as he appeared beside him in his usual, miniaturized state. He could have appeared somewhere else within my subconscious, making his journey a bit easier on himself, but he had chosen to be at his brother's side at first.

With a tight, farewell embrace, Kill left Joy, warning him with these last words. "You make it back alive, you hear?"

For the most, Joy was shocked at his brother's actions. Nevertheless, he returned it.

"Don't worry, I will."

Both brothers knew all too well that if they were to fail of their separate consequences... but a failsafe goodbye never did hurt anyone. It just brought hope.

Next Chapter: Chapter Six: Motivation Estimated time remaining: 59 Minutes