Gregor Topham had sustained injuries before, but nothing quite like this. First he was nearly suffocated with a bunch of paper, of all things, and then he was nearly blown-up. A normal human, or even most spiritual people would have been completely killed or at least survived with brain damage. But not him. He wasn't a normal person.

Gregor simply sat down in a room recovering, face completely covered up. He wasn't exactly narcissistic, but he didn't like the look of burned faces or other such kinds of body horror. He had such a Freudian excuse with burns, too. Having been the host of Wrath, before directly manifesting him into the world, that would happen a lot.

Right now, he was bandaged like the invisible man. He could almost feel the tissue under the bandages reforming, thickening back up. Soon he'd have a new face in no time. Skin like rice paper, and without wrinkles. It helped to keep up appearances, no need for glamour or plastic surgery, such things he detested.

"Master," A voice said, "How is your recovery?"

He looked towards this voice. It was Sorrow, appearing as a blue-skinned woman with burning blue eyes, and a ripped dress like a nightgown. She always preferred to appear like a sad woman, but also one who cared.

"Alright, despite having my head nearly blown clean off. Were it not for you and Sharlow, I would have surely died there. Have you cooked up a suitable punishment for that paper pusher?"

"I told Apathy to send him right to the gallery...or to let some vengeful spirits tend to him."

"Good. Keep in mind...I do not want him dead. What of Wrath? Has he recovered?"

Both Sorrow and Gregor were met with a series of curse words and angered ranting. Sorrow vanished from his view, as things became much hotter. The sorcerer stood up and walked away, knowing how hot things got when Wrath got Angry, which was quite often.

"Wrath, calm yourself," Sorrow said gently, sounding almost like a woman crying, "You are not fully recovered."

"That bitch knocked my fucking head off! Get off me, you damned wench!"

There was a beeping noise as the fire sprinklers turned on. Steam and smoke begun to fill up the room, provoking more and more angered responses from Wrath. The sprinklers soaked all of the bandages; thankfully Gregor didn't feel any pain as it hit his injured skin.

He didn't make any comment, just standing out of the way before the room begun to cool down a bit. However, he did wonder why on earth he was put in the same room as the most harmful of all the Incarnations, even if he could have handled it.

It took a few minutes, but Sorrow appeared to have stopped Wrath, or at least did something to shut him up for the time being. The fire sprinklers soon stopped, leaving him standing there with soaked bandages.

"I'm sorry, master," Sorrow said, "Do you need me to replace your bandages?"

"I don't need to worry about things like 'infection'. If anything, helped cool down the explosions. How many did you capture last night?"

"We captured twelve, master. According to Wrath, the Gumiho and the Controller escaped."

"Ah yes. What were their names? I could perhaps find them."

"Alana! She was the controller!" Wrath sputtered, "I want to find her and gut her little hea-"

"Shut up or you're taking a bath in the Arctic Ocean again!" Gregor snapped.

Wrath immediately shut up.

"Hm, shame I couldn't see her face too. Then we could have more easily tracked her down. No matter. She had to have been a controller. Always the last to go if you ask me...by the way, where's everyone else?"

Sorrow looked over at the bandaged man.

"Everyone's here except for Despair," She responded, "As well as those you haven't yet invoked. I do so wish to see Torment again."

"Torment's a tad...tied up," Gregor said, smiling uncomfortably beneath the bandages, "But what's Despair doing?"

"He said he detected someone. Maybe he's looking for the two who escaped. Or a potential ally."

"Always good...or someone to drain mana from."

Ever since she was young, Journey believed that her plush animals were more than simple toys. She claimed that they saved her life at one point, but nobody believed her. Calling one crazy despite the proven existence of the occult. Amazing, wasn't it?

One of the reasons that Journey requested a solo room in the dorm was that she wanted to bring more than a few stuffed animals with her to college. While it wasn't completely occupied by stuffed animals, there were certainly more than one would normally find in a college girl's dorm room.

The largest plush she had in her room was a panda she had won at the county fair for winning the ring toss. It made a great pillow, actually, and laid on her bed, next to a stuffed rabbit that she had ever since she was three. On her desk was a small stuffed armadillo that sat on top of a textbook. She also had a snake plush coiled around the desk lamp.

Finally, Journey had a rather unusual plush that she took nearly everywhere with her. It was a very small plush with an oversized head, based a little bit off of a leopard. She designed it to look a bit like a creepy doll, with button eyes and somewhat of a silly smile. The only way one would really guess that it was a leopard was because of the fabric.

Journey called it, "Leopold", a rather clichĂŠ name, but she made the doll when she was only eight years old. She had over the years done far more to Leopold than almost any other plush she owned. She had attached the stuffed leopard to her belt, her backpack, and most commonly in her purse.

Right now, she was busy studying inside her dorm room, when she heard a knock on the door. She stood up and opened it, thinking it might have been someone looking for beer or asking if she had notes for a class they were both in.

Journey opened the door and saw a rather gaunt looking person, yet with a somewhat gothic appearance. Possibly an emo. She didn't recognize him at all, and he looked up at her with seemingly sad looking eyes.

"...can I help you at all?" she asked.

The man did nothing but reached for her arm. Journey felt a bit of a zapping, not unlike a static charge. But his hand felt ice cold against her skin. She yelped and pulled it back, wondering what the heck this person was doing.

"Come and help us, we can train you," The emo looking man said.

"Yuck! No!" Journey said as she grabbed ahold of the door and slammed it right in his face. He must have been on something - maybe marijuana or worse. People in college could get access to weird stuff. She heard a story about how the campus Subway had a customer who tried to walk through the furniture in the store.

Just to be safe, Journey locked the door, and didn't leave until the very next morning. The man thankfully wasn't there. Strangely, he didn't bother anyone else in the dorm, even though others saw him on the floor.

Journey had a rather odd dream last night. She was five years old, before she had created Leopold. Someone had broken into the house she lived in at the time. Her parents were asleep, and the intruder had woken her up.

Had she known any better, she would have simply stayed in bed, but being the girl who hadn't yet grasped the consequences, she got up and investigated anyway. She carried one of her stuffed animals with her, holding a stuffed elephant's trunk over her shoulder, while the animal rested on her back.

She could hear someone downstairs, someone walking around, poking things. Journey turned the lights on, looking into the kitchen. At the time, she thought it might have been her dad getting something like milk. Except what she saw was not her dad.

It was someone she didn't recognize at all. Someone who had a ski mask on, and dressed in complete black, a burglar! At first, Journey was silent, and had a stare down with this burglar. The burglar simply reached for something and pointed a gun at her.

"Do not scream, or I'll shoot," He said, "Go back to bed now. Do not tell anyone I was here."

Journey instead did the exact opposite. She screamed, and threw the stuffed elephant over her head right at the burglar. The gun fell to the floor, firing into a nearby counter as the burglar screamed. The plush hit him right in the chest, knocking him back

Journey continued to scream, not thinking to get her mom and dad. All she did was simply scream bloody murder as the burglar's body thumped to the floor. She finally let up for a moment and spotted her plush elephant having sat on the burglar's chest, front two legs pinning his arms to the ground, nearly forcing him in a spread-eagle position.

This was the time when she claims her stuffed animals saved her life. Everyone else assumed that the burglar simply was so surprised by the elephant that he didn't move until her dad came and tied him up. However Journey knew the truth. She had relived it a few times in dreams, even now. She knew her stuffed elephant had come to life and pinned the burglar down.

All of a sudden, her dream was interrupted by Korn music. It was one of those awkward moments when reality begun to work its way into your dream. That more or less completely interrupted all her dream. Journey shot up, being nineteen and not five again, and with her phone alarm still blaring.

"Kidnap the sandy claws, lock him up real right. Throw away the keys and then turn off all the lights!"

Journey quickly grabbed her phone and shut the alarm off. It was a rather unusual alarm, a song about capturing and torturing Santa Claus, but it at least got the job done.

"Not again," She said. She had that dream a few times. Though every time she did, she noticed something weird about the plushies in her room. A few of them were staring at her, or had been in places that she didn't remember them pushing. This time, Leopold was sitting right in the Armadillo's lap. Journey explicitly remembered placing him on the other side of the desk.

This was weird. She didn't often have that dream, but it was a bit of a coincidence, what with the emo person yesterday who tried to grab her. (Maybe it was a rapist.)

Nobody else had seen that person since yesterday. Maybe he was just someone trying to creep her out. Journey however couldn't shake the sensation that somebody was watching her from somewhere. For some odd reason, she got an extra odd feeling from Leopold, who seemed to be turning around inside her purse.

A few times, she spotted the stuffed leopard looking around at something. She remembered that even though his head was poked out, he kept looking in places she didn't remember pointing him towards. It was really really unusual. Although one time in the middle of the day, she thought she spotted that emo looking guy but maybe she was just imagining it. Still, Leopold also seemed to be looking in the direction she thought she saw him in. It was weird.

Much later, Journey walked into her dorm room at the end of the hall. She screamed when she saw who was in there. It was the emo person, casually sitting on her bed.

"So you've noticed your powers," He said to her.

Journey simply screamed again, backing out of the hall. Not everyone was at the dorms yet, still either at classes or were in the library. Or they were hung over, and simply ignored her screaming.

The emo person stood up, smiling at her.

"You can't necessarily control it yet. We can help," The person said.

Journey didn't say anything else, although she was wishing she carried pepper spray in her purse. Just because she was in college in a safe town, she thought she didn't need it, unless she went out at night.

He came closer and closer still. But then the incredible happened. The stuffed panda she kept on the bed seemed to stand up of its own accord and hopped off the bed. The stuffed panda landed belly-first on the intruder, sending him to the nice hard rug. He even seemed to be a tad bigger, and had the intruder pinned to the ground.

Instead of struggling in surprise, he looked up, making eye contact with Journey. She seemed to feel a little dispirited, rather than scared. Like his gaze was sucking up her fear, making her want to simply sit down and give up. There was nothing she could do. Journey quickly snapped out of it, thankfully.

"You're learning fast," The man said, still pinned beneath the panda, "But there's no way you can face me for real."

His voice deepened, suddenly becoming more tinny sounding, and hollow. Journey watched in horror as his face seemed to harden into a rather sad looking face, but also gaining a metallic tang. His black clothes were replaced with a seemingly brown looking robe. Rather than assume that he looked like a cartoon character, Journey screamed again and tore down the hall.

The hallway seemed to go on forever, longer and longer than usual. Journey finally turned around, only for it to be seemingly going on forever. No matter what, it was an endless hall.

"You can't escape from this," The voice of the demon said, "Only I can get you out of here for real."

"Who are you?!" She shouted.

"Call me the Incarnation of Despair," The voice of Despair said, "It was I who unlocked your powers for real, you know. You were hiding them. Why would you simply hide them underneath a veil of disbelief? You're a controller. You sent that Panda to attack me, you sent that elephant to attack someone else. That creature in your purse is looking at me right now."

Journey glanced at her purse, finding Leopold to be looking behind her. Instinctively, she took the plush leopard out of her purse and held it in front of her. Despite this, he still looked behind Journey - directly at her face.

Journey looked around behind her and saw nothing. She held Leopold up again, only for him to turn around behind her again. This 'Despair' fellow was always behind her. Finally, she backed against a wall, with Leopold looking to her left.

"Get me out of here!" She shouted, "I did nothing to you!"

"You merely existed. Your energy can be used for something big. I can teach you to use them. Why don't you come with me, give up everything else."

"No! Get the hell away from me you creep! You're rabid or something!"

Despair appeared to her left once more, he seemed to be inching closer and closer.

"Why, I'm only trying to help, madam," He said, "You're a controller, or a puppeteer if you want to believe that. If you don't come with me, I'll make you come.

"Get the hell out!" Journey shouted, holding Leopold to her like a shield.

"What do you think this is, a voodoo doll?"

Journey shouted again, and then the seemingly impossible happened. Almost too conveniently, like a deus ex machina. Leopold seemed to grow, moreso than her stuffed panda did. The leopard grew too big for her hands, and she dropped him to the floor. But he stood up on his two legs, leaning over onto his oversized arms. He grew bigger than she did, leaning over with his arms on the ground giving support.

"Wh-What'd you do to my plush?" She asked.

"I didn't do a thing," He said, "You made it grow."

Suddenly, Journey had a weird idea. Seeing Leopold hunched like that, she suddenly grabbed the top of his head, looking over the large leopard's head and held on. The plush was almost taller than Despair was himself, itself, maybe?

"What do you intend to do? I'm not scared of someone taller than me," Despair said.

Leopold begun to move once more. Journey almost fell off of the plush, but she still held onto the plush's head tightly. The plush waddled towards the demon, and then grabbed him in his plush arms. Despair at first looked at this like nothing happened, before things for a bit violent.

Journey held on tight as the demon begun to shake Despair up and down, like one would do to a can of soda intended for someone you wanted to prank. At first, Journey watched with curiosity, then she wondered what would happen he was thrown into the wall. Leopold then let go of Despair, sending him right into the wall with a metallic clank.

Despair fell to the ground, head leaving a deep impact into the wall. He removed bits of plaster from his head, looking up at Journey.

"What in the hell is this? A dummy?"

Journey had another idea as Leopold walked over to him. She imagined him swinging his arms and punching him. Leopold followed her thoughts, repeatedly punching the demon with round motions, eventually pushing the demon back more.

"Already using Mana? You're picking up faster than I thought."

"Let me GO!" Journey shouted, as Leopold grabbed onto Despair once more. This time, she and Leopold sent Despair right up into the ceiling, still holding onto his legs. She pulled him back to the ground, slamming him into the floor. Journey then spun around, smacking Despair against the wall a few times as she pulled a three-sixty. Despair continued to make metallic clanks and wails as he was spun around such.

Journey continued to beat down the demon while he was stunned. The plush slammed him into the ground, and then threw him down the hall again. Before he could get up, Journey rode Leopold to where he landed and then pounded his chest with the plush's oversized arms. There were a few cracking noises, as soon, the hallway begun to shimmer, returning back to normal. Journey looked over at the demon, thinking him dead.

However, instead she saw something else. Leopold had apparently crushed the demon's chest, revealing a rather empty looking body, with some kind of glowing stone in it. The demon lay there, motionless. Journey backed up a bit on the plush, and simply stared at the demon.

Before her eyes, the demon's armour seemed to regenerate, forming a somewhat realistic looking human made entirely out of metal. Despair sat back up, making eye contact with Journey.

"You made a mistake," Despair groaned, "You could have killed me, but you didn't. You will live...for now. I recommend you get stronger, if you want to survive what's to come."

Before Journey could order Leopold to crush Despair, he simply vanished. Leopold swung at thin air, as Journey lost her balance and fell off the side of her mount's head. Thankfully, she landed her feet, walking a little bit as she kept her balance.

The first thing she thought was looking towards the plush. At first, the giant plush sat there, motionless, before it shrank. Instinctively, she held her hand out, and Leopold seemed to float right back into her hand, shrinking back to his 'normal' size.

"Now to find my purse," She said, still in surprise at what had just happened. The plush's head seemed to turn down the hall, and she followed his gaze. Her purse had landed right on the ground, apparently during the struggle.

"...Amazing," She said, looking at the plush leopard, "stuffed animals do save lives again."

Meanwhile outside the dorm, a rather Korean looking woman looked up at a window. She knew that Despair was in there, somehow. She could sense him...but he seemed to have vanished. What would cause an Incarnation to simply vanish like that? She had to investigate this matter further...maybe there was someone else in there who had been targeted. And if they fought off Despair, they would likely prove to be an invaluable ally.