Avatara

Grace felt a course of energy go through her. Knightmare-Grimm had her in his grip. Looking at her with a combination of l.u.s.t and menace, with his wolf-like face and yellow eyes.

She could feel him shifting her emotions, feelings and thoughts in her head. Artificially creating feelings of love, then contention in the next moment but each time bringing her back to love, making her feel soothed. He changed her feelings from hate to love and then he hit her with a dose of extreme mental pain. Peverse feelings of gratitude permeated her each time he brought her back to p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e after the pain.

"Errrrh." Grace felt uncontrollable despair, after another measure of pain, like all her worst memories coming together at once. Worse than when Dad left Mum and her as a child, never to return. Worse than being kidnapped by a man she loved. She closed her eyes; firm shut; to try and escape it all.

"It's unfair that you are in so much pain Grace," said Knightmare-Grimm. "Let me see if I can help you. I can cure this. Do you want me to cure this?"

Grace grimaced, clenching her teeth, the pain felt like a fine cutting inside her head.

"Grace I can't cure this pain, unless you ask me to," he continued. "Do you want me to try and stop it?"

"Yes," said Grace.

"Say 'yes please my love please take control of my pain,'" he said.

Grace bled more from the grip of his right hand; blood streaked down her arm. Virtual blood no doubt but in this environment it still felt real. Whether Grace noticed this fluid loss was unclear. Being in so much pain she could not stand and was on her knees before Grimm. Knightmare-Grimm's left hand remained on the kernel. The large obelisk pulsed at a steady rate, giving a low pitched sound.

Grace opened her eyes for a moment and saw a piece of ground collapse and disappear close to where Pixel lay.

"Pixel…" she whispered.

But Knightmare-Grimm's voice boomed again. "Grace, say 'yes please my love, please take control of my pain." His words repeated again and again for her on loop, as she experienced the feeling of falling further and further into darkness.

"Yes please my love," she said. "Please take control----."

'You are not the body. You are not the mind Grace. Try to let them go.'

Grace numbed for a second. 'Who was that?' Someone else was talking to her and it wasn't Qwerty. It was Yi. But how?

'Grace, it is me,' he said. Grace remembered a theory she'd read during her computer science degree about 'recursive definitions.' The concept of an object being captured within the rules of another object. Being an intellectual lateral thinker, she reapplied this idea to the concept of virtual environments, recognising that a state of mind could exist in another mind. And that another mind could even exist within that one. Basically, minds within minds. It was that concept alone that enabled her to create Avatara. Her real body and brain existed in the real world. But her soul and her mind were inside a computer system right now and even that mind contained its own thoughts. Those thoughts, holding an experience of self-concept, were now exchanging ideas with a monk that was supposed to be dead. All this complexity, disorientated her and she felt like she was splitting apart.

'There is no limit within the quantum states of mind, he said. I have given you my soul, which means you have my abilities.'

Grace could still hear Knightmare-Grimm speaking to her. "Surrender to me Grace," he said.

'Pain is to be endured Grace,' said Yi, within her mind. 'But you don't have to face it alone. Everyone is trying to help you. Let me help you.'

Grace felt paralysed by the force of Knightmare-Grimm's energy. And yet another force grew within her, starting as a small flicker of heat, turning into resounding warmth.

'Open your eyes Grace,' Yi said.

Grace opened them. She saw the large, dribbling, wolf-like face of Knightmare-Grimm close up. Terrifying. She wanted to scream but she suddenly calmed. She had access to abilities and memories that were not her own. The powers of Yi.

"That's it Miss Shelley, surrender," said Knightmare-Grimm.

'Don't fear him Grace,' said Yi. 'Look him in the eyes.'

She did.

"Grace, you belong to---." Knigthtmare-Grimm stopped talking. A look of fear appeared in his eyes.

"Impossible," he said. "Impossible," he repeated. "This can't be happening, it's the monk doing this. Get out of my head. Nothing can stop me. I am in control here."

Grace felt Grimm's powers draining from her and in return she had the experience of going into his mind.

'Let's see what this monster is hiding,' said Yi.