“Wait! You kept samples of each Well, didn't you?”

“Only one vial from the Life Well.”

“That should be good enough. Probably. Open your void key.”

Lindon did, and the closet door appeared out of nowhere, Little Blue squeaking happily.

And Harmony's spirit locked onto Lindon.

Lindon ignited the Burning Cloak again, turning to face the Akura. He kicked Orthos away to glare at Lindon.

“You can handle this, Dross,” Lindon said, waving to the basin. Then he kicked off, launching himself at Harmony.

“Yes, of course I can,” Dross said behind him. “Of course. Handling it, that's what I'm doing.”

Swords shoved up from the ground, almost as tall as Lindon was, but he tore them apart with his right hand. While they tangled him up, a shadow-blade flashed at him at neck height.

Orthos plowed into Harmony from behind. The Akura turned, catching his shell with one gauntlet, but Orthos spun and whipped his tail into the shadow artist's chest.

Harmony flew back, gauntlets dissipating to essence and violet crystal boots appearing on his feet. They bit into the stone, stopping him instantly, as he fired another Striker blade at Orthos.

So he wasn't watching when Lindon broke through the techniques and landed in front of him, Burning Cloak blazing around him. He punched Harmony with his right hand, but white fist met purple as Harmony got his gauntlet up.

Lindon was pushed back by the force of the attack, but Harmony was only feet from the stone wall. He crashed back into it, his black halo eating into the stone even as his gauntlets cracked the rock.

Orthos landed at the same time as Lindon steadied himself, and once again they acted as one. Lindon brought his hands together in front of him, gathering a ball of black-and-red fire between his palms. Orthos cracked his jaws, dragon's breath forming in his mouth.

Two burning bars of Blackflame met on Akura Harmony's body.

~~~

Dross struggled, panting like he had lungs, to pull a single vial of Life Water out of the void key's open storage.

“You're not going to help, are you?” he asked Little Blue.

The Sylvan cocked her head at him and whistled.

Before his union with the other Eyes of the Deep, that would have been incomprehensible to him. It was still mostly incomprehensible to him, but there was clearly a pattern in the Sylvan Riverseed's communication. He had started to see it, so he could make out what she was saying. Mostly.

“It's not about carrying heavy things, it's about your attitude. Do you hear what I'm saying? Willingness to help, that's all I'm looking for. Moral support.”

Little Blue raised her arms in the air and gave a cheer that sounded like wind chimes.

“See, that's all I'm asking.”

With superhuman effort, Dross stretched the vial in his arms over the basin. Shining green liquid splashed around the ghostwater pearl, with the white swirling inside the green. They hadn't mixed.

And they wouldn't. Not yet.

“The truth is,” Dross said to Little Blue, “all the hard work happens in the Wells. This tree just gathers it and uses it to fuel our thoughts.” He paused as he grabbed a vial of Spirit Well water, his mind drifting back to what it was like to be part of the collective.

It had been...expansive. He was far more now than he had ever been before, but when he was connected to the tree, he was a drop of water in the ocean. There was something empowering about being an ocean.

Little Blue squeaked, and violent power flared nearby.

Right, the fight. Time limit, and all that.

Dross heaved the second vial into the air. Each time he lifted one of these, he strained his physical substance. It didn't eat into his memory anymore; now he had an outer membrane that took on all physical strain. But sooner or later, that membrane would be exhausted.

Sooner rather than later, if he was reading his own body's condition correctly.

The blue water swirled in with the green and white, creating a pleasing whirlpool. The aura above the basin twisted like a storm as the powers clashed, and Dross lurched closer to the void storage again. “Just...one...more...”

He was having trouble dragging his body through the air. He moved his stubby arms in front of his eye, and he could see straight through them.

That wasn't ideal.

He drifted closer to the ground, and Little Blue hopped down from her perch. Her dress-like lower body twirled around his eye, and she looked down on him.

Dross tried to speak, but he was having enough trouble holding himself together without losing any of his real essence.

The Sylvan Riverseed dipped down, looking him straight in the eye, and her expression firmed. With the solid ringing of a bell, she walked over to one of the few remaining vials from the Mind Well.

With both hands, she pushed it out. It was almost half her body's height, and surely twice her weight, but she tucked it under one arm and dashed for the basin.

Dross looked up at the stone device, which loomed over him like a tower. “Why...didn't you...do that before?”

By the time he reached the top, Little Blue had already upended the purple water. All four colors now whirled in the basin, the air around them crackling with power. She was as wary as he was; that power could tear them apart, or change them fundamentally.

Of course, that was almost the idea.

Dross stretched one of his arms beneath the basin, activating a hidden circle with a bare spark of madra. “Northstrider left some of his very own soulfire stored at the base. It's the last ingredient.”

Pure silver fire, like a mirror stretched into the shape of flames, flared up from the center of the basin. It spread to the water like a natural fire spreading through a puddle of oil, but it consumed nothing.

Rather, the water grew brighter. And it started to blend.

The swirl of white at the center extended out, staining the rest of the liquid, as the silver fire grew smaller and smaller. Sparks of blue and green and purple essence drifted upwards; soulfire burned away impurities, refined the physical vessel, and empowered madra.

Yet another thing he'd learned from the collective.

The silver fire was exhausted as it sunk into every droplet of the water. It was solid white now, but it glimmered with a metallic sheen.

Dross gathered himself, looking for Lindon. One more step, and he needed a physical body for this part.

Then the grand work would be complete.

~~~

The dragon's breath met in a furious conflagration over Harmony's body, an inferno of black and red. The ball of fire devoured the nearby stone, so that it looked like they'd scooped out chunks of the wall and floor with a massive shovel. The rock glowed cherry red, but thanks to the destruction aspect of Blackflame, it left no molten stone behind.

Lindon and Orthos released their techniques together.

“Do we have a way out?” Orthos asked.

“Dross is working on it.”

“He should work faster.”

Harmony stepped out of the fading black-and-red madra, clad from head to toe in armor of violet crystal. The black disc hovered behind his helmet, and light shone where his eyes should be.

He extended one armored hand, and a metal axe shimmered as it appeared from his soulspace. It had a shaft as long as he was that looked as though it was made of one long bone, and its broad, curved head glistened with a red light.