Night Terrors (OPEN)

Kristoff was laying in his bed, the room he had chosen was adorned with his weaponry and outfits. He had various guns, his swords, and daggers all on racks. Hanging behind his door was his Army BDUs, adorned with his last name, Makarov, his rank patch, Lt., and a patch with an M looking like it was made from lightning, a symbol he was in the Metahuman Task Force. Kristoff was tossing and turning, muttering in his sleep.

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It was August of 2016, Kristoff had been deployed with his platoon a mere month prior. He and his fellow metahumans were riding in an APC, one of a convoy of 4. They were on their way to Thawrah, an ISIS controlled city. Survival by Eminem played from the speakers, slightly drowned out by the motor and pot holes the APC climbed over. Kristoff stood up, he had mission control until he met up with Captain Abadi at the F.O.B. "ALRIGHT! EARS UP! As you know, we are heading to the ISIS controlled city of Thawrah, where we are to link up with the Syrian Armed Forces at F.O.B. Bravo. We are deep in Enemy Territory now! And I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."  He grinned, the people on the APC all began hooting and hollering, sparks of lightning, licks of fire. "OKAY MUTIES! LET'S GET SOME!" The cheering intensified, turning into wolf howls. But that was all interrupted.

KA-BOOM!! The transport stopped abruptly at the sound of the explosion. There was a second of quiet before the machine gun fire. It was an ambush."MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!" The Metahumans would push their way out of the APC, many being gunned down as they exited, some would be able to get to cover behind the APC. Kris grabbed his M16 and ran out, that's when he was able to see what had happened. They had been bottle necked into a ravine, ISIS on both sides, the first Transport ran over an IED. They were blocked in. The screams from his brothers and sisters in arms echoed through the ravine, answered only by gunfire. Kris raised his M16, beginning to fire at the ambushers, they were too far for a flash dash to work. He'd hear someone on the horn, giving their coordinates for an airstrike. His whole platoon was being wiped out, Kris was about to order the retreat when he heard the familiar sound of an RPG, the Ravine behind them was blasted, boxing them in. He watched his friends gunned down.

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Tears were flowing down Kristoff's cheeks as he began screaming in his sleep. He couldn't wake up, he was trapped in his body. He was tossing and turning. Next to his bed were two freshly emptied bottles of vodka, probably to help him get to sleep.[/color]

Yui Fotias had chosen to go back to sleep, even after the weird dream eater had taken away her reality the last time. The young dream walker had found a cozy bedroom decorated in pinks and soft purples. It probably belonged to that weird alien girl from the Teen Titans that she had heard of, but she didn't care enough to look around right now. All that mattered to her was whether or not her world was back in working order or not.

When she awoke in her standard blank canvas of a dream, she sighed in relief and quickly changed the landscape, deciding on a prehistoric scene with sapphire colored t-rex and magenta long necks. She giggled and started to play around for a moment before something popped up in the sky. It was a dream that was happening close by. The small one jumped into the dream tunnel and flew over to the scene, carefully slipping into it undetected for now.

Instinctively, she knew this was not a pretend dream. Humans had a tendency to dream of things that have happened before. She called them Memory Tails, because it took them back to something they remembered, but it wasn't always exactly right. However, she knew better than to mess with these unless absolutely necessary. The human brain brought these on with a purpose most of the time, so it was best to let them play out like the human wants them. Although, this one was starting to scare her.

War dreams were always the worst, and this one looked atypically horrific. It was an ambush and there was no escape for the dreamer that she could see... Wait a second... That was Uncle Kris from this dimension!! She gasped and flew a little closer, staying unseen for now, but keeping a very close eye on things. The girl bit her lip and wanted to intervene, but knew she shouldn't, but she had to do something!!

The small one nodded to herself as she figured it out. She flew down next to Kris and appeared as a 18 year old girl with long white hair, military uniform, and features that very closely resembled Bow. She held a machine gun of some sort in her hands that he might not recognize. It was a creation of her own imagination after all. Anyway, the girl looked up at him with that same love and loyalty that his true sister gave him and she spoke in a sing-song like her as well. "Lieutenant Kristoff!! What do we do!? We're surrounded!!" She was trying to get him out of here however she could. If this didn't work though, she would take matters into her own hands and bend reality the way she wanted to.

Kristoff was surrounded by his fallen comrades, this was his first mission as Lieutenant, and he already ****ed up. He looked at the two soldiers that came up to him, clearing his throat. Now was not the time to show fear, "We have birds in the sky now, but the airfield is 20 klicks away and they'll need to mobilize. We have to survive for at least 30 minutes...." Kristoff looked around, rallying the survivors, there were about 10 of them left. There were close to 90 10 minutes ago. "You! Mercenary! I know I technically don't have jurisdiction over you, but if we're going to survive, I need everyone here to listen to me." Kristoff would fire shots at the insurgents climbing into the ravine. The ones at the top seemed to be regrouping for a push. Kris took advantage of the lull to address his troops, "ALRIGHT LISTEN UP! I'm not going to sugar coat it, command royally screwed the pooch. We've got birds on the way, but they will take approximately 30 minutes to get here. The only way we survive is if we dig in! We need to build up our defenses! Everyone grab what pieces of metal you can! if you have heat or fire abilities, we need to weld them together! Get moving! Go! Go! Go!" Kris would activate his aura and start flash dashing, grabbing what he could, other soldiers either started welding or gathering.

Yui would then suddenly catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye, something moved. Or was it just a trick of the mind?

Mariyah would be next to see something. A dark shape that immediately vanished when she'd look toward it. Something was definitely moving around.

Kris would be the last to see something move. But this time it was in the direction of the insurgents, the shape of a figure joining them as they were mustering together.

Yui blinked and her head snapped to look over at Mariyah with wide, uncertain eyes. What was going on here? That was another dreaming person, but she hadn't done anything, had she? This is why she didn't normally mess with memory tails. They were weird and didn't obey the normal laws that governed what she could and couldn't do. The best that she could guess was that somehow, the dream stream had noticed her presence and pieced together that these two were having the same dream so it merged them together. That was weird. This place was weird.

The small girl couldn't focus on the oddity of what was happening as much as she would have liked to, as her attention was quickly pulled to her Uncle talking about how far away the reinforcements were. This was a horrible memory for both of them! So much death and destruction in such a short amount of time. She could feel the emotions running through everyone in the ravine and tears uncontrollably started to pour from her eyes as she stared up at him in absolute fear. It was the first time she had been legitimately afraid for her life in her own reality. Because this wasn't actually her reality. It was theirs.

She looked up between the two of them and gulped. "I-I'll help with preparations!!" The young girl ran off to help when she thought she saw something move in the corner of her eye. Something that wasn't supposed to be here. That couldn't be right. She was just seeing things. This place didn't act right, but that didn't mean it wasn't still just a dream. She should be able to at least control herself. Give herself whatever powers she wanted. Right now Raven's telekinesis sounded good. She pointed her hands at a large chunk of metal and even chanted the proper Azarath Metrion Zenthos even though she knew she didn't need it. Or did she? Nothing happened.

Her eyes went wide and tried again, this time just focusing on picking it up with her mind rather than playing a character. Nothing again. Her powers weren't working right. She went wide eyed and gasped, stunned in fear. The girl wasn't moving, standing right in the way of gunfire. She looked up at the enemies and panted heavily, unable to bring herself to do anything. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in her left shoulder and she screamed, dropping to her knees as her hand clutched her shoulder. "W-what's going on here!? W-why is it not working!?" Something was terribly wrong here. She didn't like it.

Kris looked out and saw a girl just standing in the line of fire, he growled. How dare she? He walked up to her aggressively after the Merc had addressed her, "SOLDIER! GET YOUR HEAD ON STRAIGHT AND GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR!" He'd grab an M16 for her when he noticed her getting shot in the shoulder, he scowled. How DARE she make them waste medical supplies on her, when all she did was stand there like a training dummy. He contemplated leaving her there with the others for a half second, but those were where his friends now laid, friends who had been willing to act to make sure the others were able to get to safety. He wouldn't disrespect them like that. He grabbed her and pulled her to safety, yelling for the last surviving medic to patch her up.

Kristoff stood up, looking carefully over the metal barricade, he was surveying the scene beyond the barrier, the screams of soldiers, many of them no older than 19, were silenced by machine gun fire. He would growl, command sent them into a meat grinder, they hadn't scouted ahead, they couldn't have. He'd take the moment to rest with the rest of his soldiers, taking a moment to try to convince himself they were the lucky ones. He'd look over and see the Merc sitting against the barricade, a piece of metal in her leg. He'd grab his medical jump kit, looking up at her, "Need a hand?"

Yui would feel something in the air change. Her awareness of dreams making her more sensitive to things going on around her. The weapon Kris gave Yui would... glitch for a moment. Meanwhile, back where the insurgents were, a man would emerge. He was dressed in some kind of tattered coat with a hood drawn over his face, just revealing a bone-white jaw that seemed to hanging partially open for a lightly seeping dark mist to seep out. He just started walking toward the group's position, completely being ignored by everyone around him. Except for Mariya, Kris, and Yui.

The civilian dressed in army clothes in the middle of a war was still in shock at what was going on around her. Any other time, she would be able to solve all of this in a number of different ways. Make everyone's guns start shooting bubbles. Snap and make the enemies simply disappear. Turn the entire area into a night club where they were having a dance battle rather than shooting bullets at each other. So many options at her disposal, and none of them would work here. It was terrifying. Everything she thought she knew was wrong here and she didn't know how to deal with it.

The first person to come up to her was the girl that was dreaming, which made sense. The other figments of their imagination had no reason to talk to the girl that didn't belong here. They just ignored her. The girl though had thoughts and reactions that were different than the memory because her mind was the one helping to create it. When she came up to Yui, the young girl gulped and stared up at her in absolute fear, but tried to act strong. [color=white]"Y-yes ma'am!!" It was obvious that she didn't belong here, but Mariya didn't have time to focus on that.

As the girl started to look around for a gun of any sort, her uncle was storming up to her. She noticed that the gunshot from her shoulder was gone and she bit her lip. She knew what that meant. Dreams were weird and repeated themselves in awkward succession. Yui turned to look up at him as he yelled at her and thrusted a gun into her arms. Oh no. The pain came searing back at her shoulder and she screamed, dropping to one knee. This was no good. Something was terribly terribly wrong here and she had to figure it out soon, for all of their sakes.

When she was dragged to the medic, she just shook her head and watched Kristoff run off, tears in her eyes. The girl looked down just in time to see the gun glitch and shook her head, going wide eyed. "No no no no no no..." She shrunk down to her normal size and scanned the area quickly. As soon as she laid eyes on the man everyone was ignoring, she ran to him without care of what was going on around them. Her right eye was a dark sapphire while the other was orange in fear. She looked up at him and put her hands up trying to stop him, trembling from head to toe. "L-leave here right now!! Th-this isn't a normal dream!! It's a memory and if you interrupt it could have really bad effects on them!! PLEASE GO AWAY!!" She screeched as she got shot in the side, but didn't move. If he tried to keep walking, she would create a metal wall behind her, panting heavily. This was not going to be good.

Kris would finish wrapping, chuckling, " Lt. Kristoff Makarov." He'd then look over at the ominous figure, then at the soldier.... who was an 8 year old girl now. "Uhhhhhh......" He had no time to ask any questions when the merc stated she was going to kill it, flinging metal at the creature. Kris would follow suit with an electrical blast. He was beyond lost, but had to keep his head level, the troops were ignoring the apparition, not good. They were busy attacking the insurgents, keeping them off the barrier.

The figure kept walking until Yui ran up to them, towering over her- or was that just another mental trick? But she was greeted by a crooked, broken grin and a single glowing red eye. The figure said nothing. But a thoughts entered into Yui's mind, followed by an unearthly chill. "You're powerless here, you can't run from this. And you will die." The single red eye then suddenly looked up at Mariyah hefting a sheet of metal, tilting their head bemusedly as she threw it at it. And it simply passed through it's body without so much as disturbing it. This was followed by it's body finally breaking apart like something barreling through smoke from Kris' electrical blast, quickly reforming as if nothing had happened.

The figure would then start to retaliate by making some kind of gestures with it's hands, pushing them outward toward Kris and Mariyah's general area as a pair of hummer-sized, black glowing hands appeared over head. Then like a maestro, the figure slowly slid their hands off to the sides as a pair of black, crackling beams of... something started to slowly and literally erase everything in their path. There were no screams from any soldier caught up in them. Afterward, the figure would finally turn their attention back to Yui, it's bone white hands emanating the same darkness as it reached toward her.

The small child trembled like a leaf in the wind as she looked up at the looming figure in her vision, both eyes now a piercing orange as fear gripped her heart and made it hard to breathe. The thoughts kept circling in her mind and she believed them with every fiber of her being. She was powerless here. In her own place of peace was now a chaotic mess of absolute destruction. There was nowhere to run and hide. This was where she was going to die! But then something clicked. Even if it was a memory tail, it was still a dream like everyone else's. None of them would die here. That was impossible and a myth humans told each other, but she knew better.

The girl's eyes flickered crimson for a moment as her courage resurfaced. "You're a liar and I won't believe you anymore!!" Then the two attacks came at him and he easily evaded both and her eyes quickly went back to orange, but she continued to grit her teeth, wanting to help. Wanting to do anything. This was important to her Uncle and the girl that she didn't know.

Yui breathed deeply and turned to face them as the hummer-sized hands began to erase the layout of the land. She gulped and brought her own hands out, focusing as hard as she could to keep Kristoff and Mariya's perception as if everything was still in tact around them. It was difficult and started to give her a headache, but she knew she couldn't stop. If this was destroyed, it could have catastrophic affects on their psyche and she would never allow that to happen while she could prevent it.

As his hands began to reach out for her, the girl felt a shiver run up her spine and she growled. "L-leave us alone... I-I need to fix this... I-I can fix this..." Her vision was starting to fade and she felt like the air was leaving her body as the darkness overcame her senses, but still she never stopped trying to keep the two other's safe from seeing everything around them disappear. She didn't even know if it was working, but all she could do was try until trying was no longer an option.