In the beginning there was the Wyld. The Wyld was Chaos, the unbridled primeval state of the universe. From the Wyld, sprang the Weaver and the Wyrm. The Weaver was Order and from Order, She begot Creation. The Wyrm was Her polar opposite; He was Entropy, the end of all things. From Chaos, the Wyld soon became the balance between Weaver and Wyrm. Thus the material universe was born of the harmony within the Triad of Creation, Destruction and Balance.

In the innumerable span of eons, the Wyrm desired the Weaver. He was the natural end of all things so it was logical that even the members of the Triad fell under His power. The Weaver lured the willing Wyrm into Her lair and spun webs to entrap the Wyrm for She needed to draw on His essence. She had a Vision; that of the eternal cycle that was Life. For something to Live, it needed the capability to Destroy. Should it lack this power, all living things would stagnate; with it Life would evolve, Destruction could dictate that only the fittest would thrive.

So the Weaver came upon the entrapped Wyrm and took a shard of Himself into Her. From the union of Weaver and Wyrm came Life. Wyld looked upon Life and was pleased. It blessed the union and gave a piece of Itself as well so that the circle of Life could remain forever balanced. Life was brought into the universe and seeded throughout the cosmos. Life blossomed and Wyld saw to the Balance for that was Its nature.

The Weaver released the Wyrm but She had become tainted by His touch. She began to Create out of proportion to His work. The Wyrm had gone mad in His captivity. He began to *hunger* and his depredation became rapacious, devouring before the entity could fulfil its karma. Then the Wyrm slowly twisted to Corruption as His mind took joy in perverting the Weaver's creations.

Now the Circle is broken, the Weaver becomes ever stronger as Her counterpart abandoned His Dharma. The Wyrm grows ever mightier as Corruption seeps into the universe. The Wyld weakens with each day as the Balance is shattered beyond repair.

Gregory rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. "Man, I really have to give up the cold pizza snacks." He sprang out of bed and did some basic Ler Drit stretching exercises. Just enough time for his morning workout before breakfast with Mistress Rose. A five-kilometer run followed by extensive calisthenics was nothing more than a warm-up for a Ler Drit student. The Body had to strong so that it could control the Mind after all.

At breakfast, Mistress Rose was coldly polite. She seemed to be distracted, distant; not all the teacher he had known for the past few months. She handed him a list of errands to run in town and Gregory accepted the escape gratefully. Torn between the grueling discipline of Ler Drit and the metaphysical exploration of the Soul Power, an interlude of normalcy was welcome. He could forget what he was and blend into the faceless masses.

How wrong he was.

The errands took far longer than expected, Gregory had felt out of place in the mundane world and it showed. It was difficult to interact with normal people again when your closest human contacts were a mystic capable of traversing the upper realms and a man able to warp thoughts at a whim. Still Gregory tried to keep a piece of himself that remembered what it was like to be normal. It was so easy to just lose himself in the beauty of the Astral Planes or the ecstasy of self-mastery. Maybe someday, he would gain the god-like detachment of the sociopath with mundane humanity being nothing more than insects to his eyes. He had seen such attitudes in at least one of his teachers and he'll be darned if he let it happen to him.

Mistress Rose was sound asleep as Gregory padded through the house on his rendezvous with Master Bison. No doubt about it, the man was a loon but his Psycho Power meant that someday Gregory would have the power to dispose of him. Millions of innocent souls crushed under Shadoloo's merciless heel would greet him as their savior and then Gregory could get on with his real work. He would make the world a better place, no more hunger, no more wars and no more poverty. If the petty politicians would not change their minds then he would change it for them. With the Psycho Power at his fingertips, it would be easy to get the rich to share their money with the poor. He would simply command and it would be so. Psycho Power would let him control minds as easily as someone else would use a remote control. A new world would dawn just as soon as he had learnt all that Bison had to teach him. There was no guilt in betraying Master Bison like this. After all, he had betrayed Mistress Rose much the same way.

At the appointed spot, Gregory was not surprised to see Master Bison already there. His second shadow, Cammy was there as well. There was something strange about the girl, something that reminded Gregory of Mistress Rose.............. Shaking off his reverie, he bowed respectfully to his Master.

"Hello Gregory my boy," Bison said in a deceptively avuncular tone. "Ready for your next lesson?"

Gregory nodded once. That was all that was needed. The world seemed to warp around him as the two of them were transported to the Astral Plane. So many people associated Master Bison with the Psycho Power that they forgot his training in the Soul Power. More than one adversary had found himself caught flatfooted when Master Bison pulled a Soul Power technique out of his bag of tricks.

"Now envision a event that made you angry, something that got you really hopping mad," Bison began. "What do you see?"

His eyes squeezed shut in concentration, Gregory bit out, "the high school bully, he always picked on my best friend, Frank"

"Good, very good. You can open your eyes now."

Gregory did as he was told and was confronted by a nightmare version of his past. Frank was being brutally beaten by the bully. The six foot eight, three hundred pound quarterback seemed almost demonic in this incarnation as he brought a monkey wrench down in savage blows on his best friend's back.

"No matter what happens or what you see Gregory, you shall not move a muscle until I give you the word, is that clear?" Gregory nodded mutely as his eyes were riveted to the broken prostrate form of his best friend. Cries for mercy were ignored as the wickedly heavy monkey wrench descended again and again. In his mind Gregory knew that it was an illusion but the sickening "twack" of metal on flesh and the metallic smell of blood made it seem so real. Frank's face brightened when he saw Gregory through the broken frame of his spectacles. He crawled to Gregory, looking for the salvation from pain that his friend always provided. Frank and Gregory went back a long way, they practically grew up together. No way was Gregory going to let him suffer if he could prevent it right?

Gregory struggled to keep his face impassive as Frank crawled on his hands and knees to him. Clutching his legs like a drowning man, Frank sobbed piteously even as more blows rained down on him. The look on Frank's face never changed even as a final strike shattered his skull like a rotten melon. All the time, Gregory stood by impassively as he watched the phantasm of his best friend die because of his inaction. He could feel Frank's blood seep through the material of his pants, smell the rank stink of fear in the air. "Relax Gregory, this is just an illusion," he reminded himself.

The next one was worse. His parents were trapped in their car, futilely pounding away at unyielding doors as the bully merrily splashed kerosene on the vehicle. Lighting a match, he threw it on the automobile with a flourish and bowed like a stage magician. The family car went up in flames and Gregory tuned out his mother's plaintive wails for help as his parents burned to death in a prison that once held so many happy memories. Some of his earliest childhood days were spent helping his father polish that car or sitting in his mother's lap as they went to buy groceries. Their pleas for salvation went unanswered as their only son stood by and watched. Sweat plastered his clothes to his body as Gregory tried to steady his ragged breathing. The smell of burnt flesh was overwhelming but he would show no weakness before his Master.

The bully appeared again but this time, the person in his clutches was Mistress Rose. His wrench was held tightly against her throat, cutting off her air supply. With an overpowering strength and height advantage, he easily lifted Mistress Rose off her feet while his metal instrument of death slowly asphyxiated her. Kicking her legs in a vain attempt to gain some leverage, Mistress Rose stretched her arm out to Gregory, her eyes begging him to save her. Gregory's tear-rimmed eyes drank in the macabre scene while Mistress Rose's struggles grew fainter and fainter. She tried to claw at his hands with her fingernails but his iron grip never slackened. Soon, she hung limp from the bully's hands, her glassy eyes full of betrayal as yet another student stabbed her in the back.

The bully swung the monkey wrench casually as he sauntered towards Gregory himself. Old blood the color of rust marred its otherwise pristine appearance and his hands bore the marks of Mistress Rose's attempt to save herself. Now it seemed, the bully was coming for him. Putting himself into Gregory's reach.

"NOW!" Bison barked the command only an instant before Gregory was in motion. His fists crackling with Psycho energies, Gregory pounded away with abandon; Psychokinetic Channeling lending inhuman force to his punches. The bully stumbled back as his prey unexpectedly bit back. Focusing all his hatred, rage and despair into his hands, Gregory tried a maneuver that he had seen his teacher perform once. "PSYCHO LIGHTNING!" A ball of purple energy leapt from his hands and impacted noisily on the bully. The chi attack shredded his clothes but the bully did not have time to blink before Gregory was upon him once again. There was no system or style to his fighting, Gregory's fists were guided by pure instinct as he tried to absolve the atrocities he had been forced to witness through some form of vindictive catharsis. He never stopped administering the fruits of his righteous indignation even after the bully was a bloody pulp.

"Enough Gregory."

With a snarl, Gregory lashed out blindly at the voice. At the moment, only the animalistic part of his id ruled the brain, cognizance of human speech was beyond him as it is beyond the capabilities of any other beast. M Bison casually caught the fist and sent a wave of Psycho Power down Gregory's arm.

A wave of excruciating pain shot down his arm, shocking him back into coherence. Gregory sank to his knees, totally spent as the adrenaline worked its way out of his system.

"What did you learn today, my student," asked Bison whimsically as if he did not even care about the mental torture he had put his pupil through.

"The power of rage and the loss of control it brings," Gregory bit out.

"Excellent. Always remember that your emotions are part of you, a part that you cannot deny. Tomorrow we will work on harnessing such destructive emotions for your gain. You will learn how to control your rage, rather than letting it control you."

Gregory bowed to his Master in the manner of an Asian martial artist. Tonight he had confronted his greatest foe and nearly lost. To himself.