[hr][hr][i][h1][color=9966ff]Lihn Phan[/color], & [color=cadetblue]Naoki Lee Yagami[/color].[/h1]
[sub](collaboration between [@FernStone] and [@tsukune])[/sub][/i]
[hr][hider=Fate stay/night OST - Einzbern no Mori][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Biiw6MnqLwE[/youtube][/hider][hr]
[b][code]Somewhere in Suilan, Fujian Province, China_[/code][/b]

Lihn looked down at the sheets of paper with the instructions her grandfather had given her, trying to remember exactly what he'd told her on the phone. It had all happened in a bit of a flash and now she was sitting in a hotel room in China, alone. The out-of-the-blue call had resulted in her being forced to get on a plane and leave Kei and Thanh behind in Singapore. While she was sure her brother was fine, and she'd left instructions for him to search for her half-sister. She trusted him to look after Thanh... mostly. She would have brought her daughter with her if she could.

Vien had told her that she was going to be contacted by a Metahuman. How, he didn't say. He had only given scant details as to why. It was something to do with improving business ventures but that he needed her to test the waters first - she was a Metahuman herself after all. Basically, he didn't seem to trust whatever this Metahuman did. Or like the idea of someone using their powers on him. That had gone unsaid, but Lihn was good at figuring these things out. Sadly he hadn't given her very much information about the organisation that he was in contact with. There was a lot he hadn't said that made Lihn just a bit suspicious. She wasn't going to argue with him, though. Not when she'd left most of the belongings that she'd brought over with him (and extended family).

Putting the papers aside Lihn pulled her laptop out of her bag and turned it on. No point worrying about that right now. She'd deal with some work stuff, and checking that Kei and Thanh were okay.

Eventually she had gotten through everything that she'd meant to - Kei and Thanh were all fine, and work stuff was sorted. Lihn quickly read through the notes her grandfather had given her. Hidden among the ridiculously, and useless, information was something that may have been nice for her to know earlier - she had to be asleep, and dreaming, to be contacted. Well, it was getting late.

Putting everything aside, and trying not to curse her grandfather too much, Lihn got changed and eventually managed to get to sleep.

[hr][hider=Fate stay/night OST - Magician][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW_uDYgZBAQ[/youtube][/hider][hr]
Dreaming was becoming a dread to Naoki each time he was forced to use his power for whatever evil plans the cult might have. He dragged himself - well, an '[i]astral avatar[/i]' of himself - across a dark tunnel that seemed to stretch on forever, dotted with little squares of various colors floating around him. As he walked down the tunnel, his appearance began to change: he grew taller and bulkier, to match the build of an average Caucasian adult male; the dirty and tattered rag that reflected what he actually wore in real life morphed into a hooded black coat that reached to his ankle, and a white mask formed on his face to hide his identity. All the while telling himself repeatedly that he was doing this only for the sake of his parents - to keep them alive until he could find a way to get out of Polaris as a family, at the very least.

He reached the designated square - the window leading to the specific hotel room that Hwee-Suan had taught him to mark. Beyond this window, he could see a rather young woman sleeping on the bed, with features suggesting that she was from the Southeastern part of Asia. He frowned - his contact was supposed to be an old man well past the sixties, but he could make out some similarities between her face and the photo of the man in the file Hwee-Suan had given to him. Taking in a deep breath, he reached out a gloved hand into the window and touched the woman's shoulder, before he spoke to her in Mandarin with a heavily altered voice to make himself sound deep, completely different from his real teenage self, "[i]...Come with me.[/i]"

When the voice spoke in her dreams, Lihn was a bit shocked (as much as she could be through her dreams). It was different from what she expected. Not that she'd expected much.

[i]I will come with you[/i], she tried to respond, opening her eyes in what was already a slightly odd dream to see the gloved hand. She reached out to touch the hand on her shoulder - and accepted going to wherever he was trying to take her.

Then she was falling; but not literally. It was an odd feeling that she had felt before, but not as acutely as she did, as she drifted into the deeper realms of sleep and dreams.

Naoki took the woman's hand and pulled her 'astral avatar' into his world - "[abbr=梦境, Meng Jing]Dream Scape[/abbr]", as his father had called it - leaving her physical body behind in the hotel room. The tunnel and the swirling colored squares all vanished, the darkness was immediately replaced by the same illusional cafe that was empty except for the table and two armchairs in the middle. He released the woman and walked to one of the armchairs before he gestured her to take a seat.

Naoki's eyes regarded her carefully behind his mask - the moment the link was established, he had a bad feeling about this lady. He couldn't quite explain it; he just had a nagging feeling that he had unknowingly invited a Trojan Horse into Scape.

"...Are you here for Mr. Vien Phan?" he asked, this time in an accented English (he had heard the woman spoke English when he was linking up with her just now), and tried his best to keep his tone even to hide his nervousness.

Lihn carefully took a seat, regarding Naoki curiously. She could tell that he was uncomfortable - or, something similar. She wasn't exactly sure. She carefully put up the amount of her power that she was using (which she was shocked she could use in here) to try and get a better read on him. It was subtle, as normal. She didn't have to worry as much about her control when there was only one other person in her range. As she concentrated on picking up the emotions from Naoki a dark feeling settled in her stomach; slightly unpleasant, but bearable. It increased as she read more. So many negative emotions - and it was difficult to tell them apart. Letting out a slight breath she dimmed down her empathy to the level where she didn't need to concentrate; on reading or on keeping in under control. The feeling of his negativity eased, but she could still feel it. She let it wash over her. Lihn had experienced worse and more extreme emotions. She finally spoke, still paying attention to her ability; just in case there were any emotions that could indicate a danger to herself.

"I am," she responded in a neutral tone, her English unaccented - she was practically a native speaker. "My name is Lihn Phan, and my grandfather sent me instead of him."

"We're not told about this... before this session," Naoki had been in this 'job' long enough to recite those model speeches off his head - well, he was literally [i]inside[/i] his own head now - though he had to spend a bit of time to translate the words to English in order to convey his thoughts to this 'Lihn Phan'. "We can understand... that you want to be careful about this."

Naoki could just kick her out of Scape now, since her grandfather broke the agreement and there was no point continuing this - besides, she was a dangerous liability he couldn't afford to keep here for too long - but there was something about her that he thought he could make use of. He could feel a queer... similarity with Lihn. She was most likely a Metahuman; he had caught the pained expression on her face, and made an intelligent guess that she possessed some form of power that allowed her to feel something, when there was actually [i]nothing[/i] except for the two of them in here.

...A cerebral type like him and his parents.

His training with Reiji and Yui since young had helped him to be able to single out Metahumans with cerebral powers from those of other ability types to some extent, because that was his greatest weakness to his dream world, the kind of people he had to constantly guard himself against. "[i][abbr=防人之心不可无]Be cautious of those who wish you harm[/abbr],[/i]" his father had once told him. "[i]We can heal from physical scars, but not mental scars - they stay within our mind for the rest of our lives.[/i]"

Especially since the mental capabilities of his family were highly sought after.

His mother, Yui, had a more refined, more powerful form of Dream Premonition unlike Naoki's, allowing her to tune and see the specific visions she wanted to see, going up to months, even years (of course, the further the time, the more difficult and vague it would be, which would also come with a crippling mental backslash proportional to the time span). She could directly slip into their dreams to see their future instead of bring the person into her mind world, allowing her to switch targets with ease, almost as if she was watching their life in the coming months or years unfolding before her eyes like a TV show. Hwee-Suan had truly spared no effort to train Yui to make her their greatest, most completed dream seer ever in the clan, in Polaris.

For Reiji, he was born with an extremely potent telepathic power; in Japan, Metahumans were not widely accepted as they were only a small population compared to China. Reiji's father was a telepath also, but he was nowhere as goddamn strong as Reiji, causing him to fear his own son and eventually lost his sanity. Reiji was forced to manipulate the minds of his parents in order to keep his family together, to hide his ability from everyone else. He hated his power - it drove his father mad, it broke his family apart, people around him treated him like a freak... and he wouldn't be surprised if he got captured by the government and threw him into a special cell to isolate him from the world. He didn't deserve such an end - he couldn't let his life end in such stupid misery. That made him found a way to lock his powers away, creating psychic blocks around his mind to contain his power within his own mind, giving himself the chance to live a normal life he had desired.

...Until Hwee-Suan imprisoned all of them in the cult. There was no way she could let go of three dangerous cerebral Metahumans to roam freely. If anyone knew of what the Yagamis were capable of, every single government in the world would love to capture them, and use them for their own evil greed, just like what Polaris was doing. Or even find a way to cultivate their powers to create an army of Mind Breakers to take over the world, who knows?

A person would be able to still live their life even with lost limbs, but it would be [i]game over[/i] if they lost their mind.

No matter how strong his parents were, Naoki knew they would eventually break down under Hwee-Suan's cruel treatment and forced into submission.

"Even if the contract is cancelled because of this... change of event," he said to Lihn. "But we can still make this session... useful. You're here for your grandfather to test out my power, so I'll do it on you." He nodded at her slowly. "You ready?" Maybe he could find out more about this lady through her visions, if there's anything that could be of some use to him... to help him escape Polaris. His clenched his fists on the armchair rest as the memory of Hwee-Suan torturing him and his parents reignited the hatred inside him.

If his family managed to get out of this damned cult, Naoki swore to find a way to destroy Polaris - the organization, its members... [i]everything[/i], so that his family could be truly free from their evil control.

Lihn couldn't help but visibly flinch at the pure hatred that suddenly came off Naoki in waves. Slowly she reduced the amount that she sensed so that it moved to the background of her mind. She could tell, just about, that it wasn't directed at her. Still, she carefully allowed herself to send out slightly calming emotions towards him. It was better to be safe than sorry. The changes were subtle, and concentrated on Naoki - only someone incredibly skilled at recognising their emotions being tampered it would notice it. She had honed her skill to that level where the subtle changes were all but unnoticeable.

"I'm ready."

"Very well." Naoki took in a deep breath - he was a little surprised that his boiling rage had gone down much faster than he had expected, but he simply shrugged it off and focused his concentration on Lihn, before he started diving deeper into the mind of the lady before him...

[hr]
Lihn was on the phone to her grandfather. Whatever the conversation that had happened previously she wasn't happy about it.

"[i]Why am I not to look for my half-sister any longer?[/i]" Lihn frowned down the phone, speaking in Vietnamese - as she always did with any other members of the Phan family (excluding Kei, of course).

"[i]Something... has come up. Your half-sister is not the most pressing issue for our family or my company. I need you to stay where you are for now.[/i]"

"[i]Can Kei and Thanh join me, then?[/i]" Lihn only frowned more. She was dependent on her grandfathers funds to fly anywhere else - she only just had enough to fly them back to the US.

"[i]No,[/i]" the response came with no explanation. "[i]More importantly, was your future predicted? Does it actually work?[/i]"

"[i]Yes, I did, I believe.[/i]"

"[i]Good, then I can move forward with my plans. I'll contact you soon, Lihn.[/i]"

The phone line cut off.

... ...

It was dark. Lihn didn't know where she was, and she couldn't remember how she had gotten there.

"[i]Do you know why you are here, Lihn Phan?[/i]" a voice resonated from the darkness, in thickly accented Vietnamese. Lihn could make out a figure, but no face, in a dim light that appeared. She wasn't restrained but she could tell that she wouldn't get far if she tried.

"[i]I do not,[/i]" Lihn's response was surprisingly calm.

"[i]It is a shame you have been caught up in this, then. I need you to deliver a message to Vien Phan.[/i]"

"[i]What is it?[/i]" Lihn couldn't do much more than respond. She wanted to know who this person was, and what he wanted.

"[i]Tell him that we will not tolerate his betrayal again. He will understand what you mean. That is all.[/i]"

Lihn didn't have time to tell whoever it was that they should have given the message, simple as it was, to her grandfather themselves before she blacked out.

[hr][hider=Tsubasa Chronicle OST - Ship of Fools][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puRadJ96r_A[/youtube][/hider][hr]
Naoki grimaced behind his mask. The migraine - a side effect whenever he had used Premonition - would only hit him after he had left Scape, but thinking about the vague visions he had seen was already making his head hurt. He couldn't understand a word that was spoken, but from their body language he could tell that both were something that made the woman before him anxious and worried about. Things that she was fearful of and didn't want to happen (but would happen within the five days, anyway).

He could replay what he had seen by simply reenacting the visions using Scape and get her to interpret the conversations, but would she be willing to translate them to an outsider like him to know, especially if the visions were about her family secrets? He didn't want to give such important information away to her without some form of safeguard for himself... and then he had a brilliant idea. He could just use it as a leverage - hopefully he could get Lihn, and maybe even the Phan family on his side, and then get them to help saving his family from Polaris.

He closed his eyes briefly, putting together a quick plan. He would have to be careful - he was certain that Lihn possessed some form of cerebral ability even if he wasn't sure what exactly her power could do, and she probably had more control, more experience than him in a battle of the minds.

Taking a few deep breaths, he finally spoke to her, "Now, I will show you the visions that I have seen, right here."

The lonely cafe scene suddenly disappeared, and the two of them seemed to be suspended in total darkness; then, they were falling through flashes of the silent visions - in black and white - but purposely altered to tell a different story from what he had originally seen...

[indent][color=silver][i]Lihn was back in her own hotel room, on the phone. She seemed unhappy about something, and her hand gestures were becoming more agitated with each passing second. Then her frown deepened, and her shoulders went rigid before her face slacked into shock, the mobile slipping out from her hand...

As she turned around, the lights in her room dimmed; standing at the door was a shadowy silhouette, with no face. The figure was approaching Lihn, who was shuffling backwards out of pure fear until her back touched the wall. With nowhere to run, she could only put on a brave face and glare at the intruder, squeezing a trembling fist on her chest. The figure merely stretched out a hand towards her face, their fingers clamped around the side of her head in a vice-like grip; then the grip tightened, crushing her cheekbones, her skull...

The scene blacked out, leaving only the scream of terror filling the darkness around them...[/i][/color][/indent]
Naoki and Lihn was back at the empty cafe once more, both of them landed on their respective armchairs. Naoki said nothing; his eyes were watching Lihn quietly through the white mask on his face, but he put his hands below the table out of Lihn's sight, playing with his fingers nervously. He had never tried to trick anyone with such tactics before - he knew nothing about this lady, and he was unsure if she could easily see through the the contradictions of the fake events he had mixed with the real ones...

He even wondered if she could actually see through this facade the cult had forced him to wear, to hide his identity from all their 'clients'. Well, people were less likely to believe a scrawny teenage boy than an intimidating-looking adult man.

Lihn could still feel the fear. It pushed all other emotions out of her mind, making it difficult to retain a calm exterior where she sat. She did not know if the visions she had been shown were true. No, something didn't seem right. Why would this man show her a vision of her death - nothing would come of it.

Something was off.

"Thank you for showing me the visions," she responded carefully, watching closely. She pushed away the fear that had clouded her mind moments before to reach out - and read Naoki. It was a natural feeling, like flexing a well-used muscle, and his emotions came into her mind softly - a controlled river as opposed to a flood. The emotions she felt from this person before her was a dissonance of contradictions... of fear versus confidence, of dread versus hope. Fear was far more prominent, the strongest she could feel from him - even if it was laced with a mixture of other emotions (like the pure hatred that she had felt before he looked into her future), there was no mistake about the erratic waves of anxiety that were coming off him. That could only mean one thing...

He was nervous. Why would he be nervous if he had shown her exactly what he had seen? There should be no reason for that. Slowly, carefully, she pinpointed that emotion - the nerves he felt - and increased the intensity of it. It was gentle, an unnoticeable intrusion that slowly increased just how nervous he felt.

"However, I would appreciate if you were truthful with what you showed me."

Naoki couldn't help but frown behind his mask - no matter how hard he tried to suppress the nervousness inside him, it only got worse, forcing his trembling hands to grip on the armrest in order to steady himself. The growing anxiety was making him nauseous, and he had to pour every ounce of his willpower to stabilize the illusions within Scape. His suspicion about Lihn was right: she was a cerebral-type Metahuman, and it appeared that she had the ability to manipulate emotions. Naoki knew that he was up against someone who was better and more experienced with mind games than him, and he wouldn't be able to hold his mask any longer once she had completely pierced through all this deception.

There was only one thing he could do.

The cafe scene blurred for a split second before it became the hotel room he had showed her in the fake vision. The two of them were facing each other... where Naoki resumed the role of the 'faceless' figure. Gritting his teeth, he tried to push his chaotic thoughts and emotions to the back of his mind, stretching out a gloved hand to Lihn's head, to literally act out the finale...

[i]This isn't real.[/i]

The view changed right before Lihn's eyes and she knew that whatever was happening wasn't reality - they were still in the odd dream world that this man had created. She could still feel the chaos of emotions coming off what was now a faceless figure. Yes, that was certainly not the person from the vision (whether they existed or not).

Remaining calm Lihn waited for the hand to reach out before moving her own up to grab his wrist. Her grip was tight - but not enough to hurt. Lihn didn't really want to hurt this person, but she wasn't going to let him hurt her either.

She reached out into Naoki's mind and quickly searched through the chaos. She once again found the fear, the anxiety Naoki felt, and increased it while carefully reducing the other emotions. She wasn't subtle anymore. It was a forceful thing, something she didn't do often, but it seemed like the safest way to end this. This dream world was his playground - it was only logical to her that he would lose more control over it the more emotional he got.

Keeping a tight grip on Naoki's wrist, she put all of her energy in worsening the chaotic emotions.

Naoki struggled, trying to free himself from Lihn's clutches, but his current appearance was merely an illusion; he was just a frail, sixteen-year-old boy who had been sheltered - [i]imprisoned[/i] - underground his whole life, and he was obviously on the losing end against a stronger, tougher adult like the lady before him. The scene around him flickered once before it was stable again, and this time Naoki summoned a dozen ghostly hands to pry himself away from Lihn. His control over the hotel room image was waning - the ceiling was fading into the darkness of Scape's original appearance, then coming down to the walls that were slowly dissolving to black...

All that was left, was the masked-and-cloaked man that Naoki had masqueraded, and the waves of incoming disembodied hands trying to claw at Lihn. But they were easily shattered before they could close in on her. His avatar guise was becoming unstable and translucent, revealing the smaller silhouette of his true form beneath the oversized cloak figure. Still, Naoki refused to go down without fighting back with everything he could; he turned the hands into slimy tentacles, hoping that it would disgust Lihn enough to let go of him...

It didn't bother Lihn, and she kept her grip, both physical and mental - though she slowly reduced the intensity with which she changed his emotions. She could tell that she was winning and there was no use to push it too far. Still, she kept a tight grip on her own stable mental condition. The tentacles didn't even make her flinch.

Finally, no longer able to hold up the surrealistic facade in his dream world, the imagery shattered completely; the shards of whatever was left of the illusion burst into bubbles before they melted back into the dark water around them, dimly illuminated by the white grid lines beneath their feet. This was the original form of his power - of 'Dream Scape'.

Naoki had reverted back to his true self: an adolescent Asian boy with unruly brown hair, dark eyes wide with shock and fear, his skinny, trembling frame clothed in something that looked like dirty and tattered rags, and his feet bare. He stopped struggling and went limp, but threw a bitter look at Lihn. "...This is my defeat. I will stop playing childish games with you." Then he dropped his gaze; he was relieved that he could finally stop all these dumb illusions, but another part of him wondered if this lady was sent by Polaris to test him... to make him lose control of himself and betray the cult recklessly.

He let out a sigh. "The vision I showed you just now, as you can tell, was fake... but there were some real scenes." He raised his head and stared straight into Lihn's eyes. "Before I show you the real vision..."

Tears began to well up in his eyes. All the negative emotions pent up inside him, amplified by Lihn's power during the short 'battle' between the two of them, exploded out of his mental cage: anger and hatred, fear and despair... it was all too much for Naoki to bear any longer. "[i]...S-Save me.[/i]"

Lihn visibly recoiled at the sheer amount of negative emotions; she tried her hardest to block them out, but she couldn't keep them out. Not when they were so intense. She pushed back out - but not like before. She forced herself to fight through the negativity to emit a soothing aura, trying to dampen the terrible emotions that Naoki felt.

"I'm so sorry," was all that she could say, at first, in response as she looked at Naoki's true self. She hadn't realised the person she had fought mentally was only a teenager. He was so frail and so young. She pushed down the guilt she felt from having increased the chaos of emotions he'd felt only moments earlier as she continued to try and calm them now, if only slightly. "How, how do I help you?"

There was so much things Naoki wanted to tell her: to stay away from Polaris at all costs, to find a way to bail his family out of the living hell they had been imprisoned in for years, to warn her about something grim that was going to happen in the West... which would change their current world forever. All these thoughts were filling up his mind with terror and worry, and the words were simply stuck in his throat, refusing to come out coherently.

He could only continue crying in her arms, burying his head into her chest. How long had it been since he last hugged someone, and cried like this?

It took awhile for Lihn's soothing power to take effect on the boy, and eventually Naoki was calming down. He wiped off his tears and raised his head, looking up at Lihn quietly. "Thank you, I am better now. I will show you the real vision I have seen." He held out a hand to her with a small smile. "Let's go."

... ...

After he had shown Lihn the actual snippets of her future, the boy continued to hold hands with the lady, staring at her questioningly. "Can you tell me what were been said?" he asked with child-like innocence.

Lihn only nodded, and began to translate from Vietnamese to English roughly what had been said (as best as she could). It was still a bit of a shock to her that a sixteen-year-old boy had enough power to create a dream world like that. She could only curse whoever had decided to force him to use it for what she was sure was some kind of nefarious purpose.

"That's all of it, in English."

Naoki bobbed his head as Lihn spoke; just like all the visions he had seen in the past, most of them didn't make much sense to him. So many things he didn't know about the world out there... Was this one of the reasons why Polaris was afraid to set him free, so that they could control the fate of these poor souls using his power this way? Even with his limited knowledge due to the cult's propaganda teaching, he knew that manipulating the destiny of others for personal gain was despicable.

"I'm sorry I cannot help you - I'm also not sure what those visions mean." He looked down at the illuminating white grids beneath his feet. "All I can say is that they will happen in the next five days."

He was vaguely aware that he had been spending too much time in here - normally each session wouldn't last longer than ten to fifteen minutes, but his little 'mind game' with Lihn had dragged this session for more than an hour, probably. He would have to send this lady out of his dream world before someone from Polaris try to wake him up by force... and that agony was even worse than the feedback from Premonition.

As he guided Lihn's avatar back to the hotel room she was still asleep in, there was one last thing he had to tell her. "The world is going to end," he said to her in a grave tone. "Someone is trying to become God. Be careful."

With a light push, he bid farewell to Lihn, and turned his back to her. She was a rather kind lady, but he felt that this meeting would be their first - and last.

...He was about to find out how [i]wrong[/i] he was.