On their first day of having to stay on Earth, the Guardians deal with their individual feelings over the current situation, with one of them getting an unwelcome surprise visit.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: While admitting the question is dumb, Taranee asks if Will is okay, and the latter bitterly replies that she thinks none of them is okay after the day's events.
- Bathtub Bonding: Cornelia's having this with Lilian when Irma tries to call her.
- Batman Gambit: Jade's plan for destroying the Guardians' lives on Earth is revealed to have Cedric and Miranda nudge their family and friends who aren't in the know about their powers to become more suspicious of them simply by making them notice how secretive the girls have been acting, driving a wedge between the Guardians and their loved ones.
- Big "NO!": Cornelia shouts this upon awakening from her Catapult Nightmare.
- Big Sister Instinct: When Kage implies in Cornelia's dream that Lilian is dead, Cornelia attempts to run at Kage in fear and fury. When she wakes up, the first thing she does is to hug her little sister in relief.
- Bizarre Dream Rationalization: When Irma can't believe her father's speaking pleasantly with Cedric, she hopes it's all a dream she'll wake up from soon.
- Broken Ace: Yan Lin says that Nerissa was the best of their team and had potential for becoming one of the greatest Guardians Kandrakar has seen in eons, only to succumb to obsessing over power.
- Broken Tears: Cornelia's nightmare results in these. They're mixed with Tears of Joy when she discovers Lilian is alright after Kage's dream version implied having hurt her.
- Call-Back:
- In both canon and Kage, Miranda presented herself to Alchemy as a friend of Elyon named "Melinda" who pretended to be concerned for Elyon's disappearance in order to frame the Guardians for it. Here, she uses that same persona to get closer to Alchemy and slowly turn her against the Guardians. Cedric in turn is using his old alias of Rick Hoffman from his time of being undercover in Heatherfield with the inclusion of him being the father of "Melinda".
- The events from when Miranda attempted to frame the Guardians of Elyon's disappearance are brought up here, with Miranda pretending to be trying to atone for getting the girls in trouble with the police, while those unaware of the whole truth criticize the girls for having acted suspiciously back then and Elyon for not informing anyone about her "vacation".
- Will is in such low spirits that she says Kage was right when she said to her in the original story that the Guardians aren't truly heroes while criticizing them for framing Raythor.
- Canon Discontinuity: Alchemy thinks on going to the mall with Elyon, with it being seemingly ignored that in the canonical events before this fic, Elyon told her she was moving out of Heatherfield for good.
- Catapult Nightmare: Cornelia has one of Jade/Kage attacking her in her home.
- Door Slam of Rage: When Cornelia gets home, she's so upset from everything that's happened that she slams the door shut.
- Enemy Civil War: Yan Lin theorizes that if Kage came to Meridian while running from something, she likely had to face an attempted coup from rivals who want to overthrow her as the ruler of the Shadow Realm, which Yan Lin believes to follow the dog-eat-dog rule.
- Evil Former Friend: Yan Lin laments on how Nerissa used to be someone her team could trust with their lives before she killed Cassidy.
- Exact Words: While trying to explain to Alchemy why Elyon is unavailable for some mall time, Cornelia only tells her that their friend's having a bit of a family emergency without adding it's against her evil brother Phobos. Alchemy is not convinced since Elyon was gone for months for supposedly forgetting to mention she and her adoptive parents were on vacation.
- Eye-Dentity Giveaway: When Irma's father isn't looking, Cedric turns his eyes reptilian-like in her view for a moment while subtly implying that Miranda will be spending time with the Guardians in order to take the Heart of Kandrakar.
- Facepalm: Irma's father rubs the bridge of his nose when he thinks Irma's not giving Cedric a fair chance.
- False Friend: Miranda befriends Alchemy as part of Jade's plan to turn her and the rest of the Guardians' Earth associates against them. Cedric does the same with Irma's father and implies he's going to do the same with the rest of the Guardians' families.
- Friendly Address Privileges: Cedric wins Irma's father over so quickly that the latter invites the former to call him just Tom.
- Giggling Villain: In the beginning of Cornelia's nightmare, Kage first announces her presence by giggling darkly.
- God's Hands Are Tied: When Hay Lin asks her grandmother if Kandrakar would really have let Phobos have his way on Meridian if Nerissa hadn't convinced them he was a threat to other worlds too, Yan Lin explains that Kandrakar and the Guardians' duty to protect the universe includes the need to keep and preserve balance across the dimensions. If Kandrakar became too heavily involved in every worlds' affairs, they'd risk turning from guides and protectors into tyrants of their own right, resulting in bigger chaos.
- Hell: Yan Lin believes the Shadow Realm/the Land of Eternal Shadows to be this based on the fact that while each dimension has their own myths surrounding it, they all agree that it's a dark and dangerous world from which no-one ever returns after having the misfortune of finding their way there. She even considers it to be Kandrakar's opposite and is convinced no being from it can be trusted.
- Hot Drink Cure: Upon seeing how upset Cornelia is, Lilian decides to give her a glass of chocolate milk to cheer her up, though it's not mentioned if it's warm, and it ends up being spilled when Cornelia hugs Lilian after waking up from a nightmare.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Discussed and deconstructed when Will brings up to Taranee their act of framing Raythor and argues that though they saved Vathek from being thrown to the Abyss of Shadows, it doesn't make condemning Raythor to that fate a morally right thing to do. Taranee tries to use this justification on the basis that they were fighting a war, but Will rants in response that she feels they should have found another solution, because the longer-term consequence of framing Raythor is him having returned from the Abyss with vengeance, and because he befriended Kage instead of attacking her under the unproven assumption of her being an enemy like the Guardians did, she's now borrowing him and his master her Shadowkhan armies against Elyon and the Rebellion.
- Internal Reveal: Hay Lin tells her grandmother about everything that's happened so far, while she in turn learns about Nerissa and the history of the previous Guardians.
- Intimate Hair Brushing: When Irma tries to call Will, the latter's hair is being brushed by Taranee to make her relax, with the classic music they're playing preventing them from hearing Will's phone ringing.
- Irony: Yan Lin was in Kage the one who was most willing to give Jade/Kage the benefit of the doubt despite never meeting her in person, and suspected the rebels may have done something to mishandle the situation following the blue girl's first appearance. While everyone else is convinced by "the Mage" that Kage is a loyal servant of Phobos, Yan Lin remains skeptical, and Nerissa realizes that Yan Lin will keep asking questions. However, when the full story of Kage being framed is revealed to Yan Lin in this chapter, she's against making peace with the blue girl because of what she's heard of the Shadow Realm, contrasting her previous characteristics of giving Kage the benefit of the doubt.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: Knowing she can't take direct action against Cedric while in her father's presence, Irma decides to follow the old saying and tells Cedric that she and the others will be keeping a close eye on Miranda.
- Manipulative Bastard: As part of Jade's task for them, Cedric and Miranda are working to win the trust of the Guardians' family and friends in order to sow in them suspicion towards the girls' secret lives, with Tom Lair and Alchemy already eating out of their hands.
- Never My Fault: Downplayed with Taranee; while she doesn't otherwise try to shift blame while speaking with Will, she tries to alleviate the latter's guilt by saying that it was Cedric instead of the Guardians who threw Raythor to the Abyss of Shadows. It doesn't work since Will knows Cedric did that after she framed Raythor as a traitor.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Yan Lin comments that Hay Lin's mother Joan sometimes reminds her of herself and jokes it may be the reason Hay Lin's father Chen married her.
- Loud Gulp: Hay Lin gulps in trepidation of what Yan Lin is about to tell her concerning the one thing all the myths across the universe agree about the Shadow Realm.
- Oh, Crap!: When Irma recalls Cedric's words about Miranda trying to win her and the other girls' heart over, she realizes Miranda is likely after the Heart of Kandrakar and tries hurriedly to warn Will.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Lilian is worried for Cornelia when her normally aloof big sister hugs her with teary eyes and skips going to the mall with Alchemy in favor of spending a quiet day with her little sister.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Not able to take direct action against Cedric in front of her father, Irma settles for using sarcastic sentences against him.
- Precision F-Strike:
- When Irma hears Cedric's voice in her house, the narration describes her reaction as "THERE WAS NO F*ING WAY!!!". She also demands out loud to know what the hell he's doing there, with her father reprimanding her for it.
- When Cornelia gets to her room, she actually wonders out loud "how the actual fuck did her life become this nightmare in just a day". She also calls Nerissa a bitch while thinking about her.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Kage's last words in Cornelia's dream are "Long...live...the…Queen!".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Cornelia has a nightmare in which Kage calls her a spoiled attention seeker who can't stand the idea of Elyon no longer relying on her for support.
- Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: Cornelia's dream version of Kage is a dark shape with no defined attributes other than glowing red eyes.
- Shoe Slap: Lampshaded during Cornelia's dream when Kage mockingly asks if the blonde Guardian is going to hit her with her designer shoes.
- Sinister Surveillance: Cedric and Miranda are having the Shadowkhan hide in the shadows of the people close to the Guardians, with Alchemy and Irma's father at least being on that list by the chapter's end.
- Smash the Symbol: As Kage threatens to consume Meridian into shadows during Cornelia's dream, she breaks Elyon's crown in half.
- Tears of Remorse: Hay Lin sheds these while giving her mother a half-true account on the girls' mistake with Jade.
- Tempting Fate:
- As Irma makes her way home in the chapter's beginning, she mutters that things can't get worse before finding to her horror Cedric having tea in her living room with her father.
- Cornelia's scene ends with her planning to explain herself to Alchemy on monday while reassuring herself more things can't change in two days. The scene cuts to Alchemy pouring her heart out to Miranda.
- That Man Is Dead: Yan Lin states that her two friends died the night Nerissa killed Cassidy.
- This Cannot Be!: Upon learning that Nerissa has been impersonating the Mage instead of being locked up like she was supposed to be, Yan Lin pales while saying it's impossible.
- Troubled Fetal Position: Cornelia takes this position on her bed as she tries to understand why Kandrakar and Elyon won't let the Guardians help against Kage.
- Troubled Teen: "Rick" gives a cover story that he had "Melinda" out of wedlock and got to know her only after her mother died. He didn't know how to be a father and made the mistake of giving her too much freedom, leading to her jumping to wrong conclusions about Elyon's disappearance and calling the police to investigate the Guardians.
- Villain Over for Dinner: Irma finds Cedric in his cover identity of "Rick Hoffman" chatting with her father Tom in their home over a cup of tea. He pretends to have come to apologize to everyone that his daughter "Melinda" landed the Guardians in trouble with the police over Elyon's disappearance, with him blaming it on his lacking parenting skills. Tom gives "Rick" a pep talk about parenting and tells him he's free to call or drop by when he needs further advice, much to the worry of Irma who can't tell her father how dangerous Cedric truly is.
- Villain with Good Publicity: In order to make the Guardians' Earth friends and families grow suspicious of the girls' secret lives, Cedric and Miranda pose as a father and daughter who befriend said loved ones under the pretense that "Melinda" is trying to make amends for getting the girls suspected of Elyon's disappearance.
- Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: While letting Alchemy down during a phone call, Cornelia wishes not for the first time the Guardians could tell their friends and family about their double lives. As it turns out, Alchemy is feeling blocked out by Cornelia and Elyon after getting ditched by them multiple times.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Joan Lin comforts her remorseful daughter by reassuring her that it's not too late to make amends with Jade; the girls just need to prove they're truly sorry and not to give up on doing the right thing. Though Hay Lin knows the situation is more complicated than her mother thinks, it gives her hope that things can still be fixed.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Irma exclaims this when she fails to get any of her friends on the phone.
- You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum: During her "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Kage's dream version tells Cornelia that without her friends and powers, she's nothing but a helpless and spoiled brat.
