Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

[daemonomicon.livejournal.com]

Nighttime.

Or, at least, what passed for nighttime on the meatship.

A time when most of the crew was already fast asleep, dreaming away pleasantly throughout the night.

...Or, perhaps not. For you see, tonight, something particularly strange is happening.

Now it is not all that unusual for someone to have a nightmare, especially not on the ship.

Yet tonight, no one will sleep easily, for the Nightmare King deems it so.

Everyone's dreams will have a tinge of horror to them. Nothing so out of the ordinary to rouse one's suspicions, but at the same time, no one is left out.

Pleasant nightmares, meatship.

[ooc: And thus begins the start of the Nightmare King's spree of insanity. He's starting out subtle, of course. The nightmares won't be anything more than your run of the mill bad dream, but he is giving them to everyone. Posting in isn't mandatory, but if you want to have fun with your character's nightmare, go right ahead.]

Comments

[cityship]

Like you thought the people of Vista Verde were safe? Like you thought Nadia was safe and left her there before leaving her alone to fly up into space?

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

He's silent.

[cityship]

Hal9000 changes to look like Brother Eye--it's not much of a change, to be honest. The red eye is already the same.

And seeing it again leaves Jaime feeling like he did when he was first starting out, scared, alone, like he doesn't know what he's doing...

You failed them, Reyes. Do you wonder what he'd say to you, if he could?

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

There's B5, still behind the field, the glass, his mouth moving, as he tries to tell him something important--just like before.

But as Jaime looks, he can hear him, just B5 and B5 alone.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

Brainiac 5 stares through the glass, his eyes intent and fixed solely on Jaime's, ignoring the others around him.

"Why did it have to be this way?" he asks, and his voice is filled with all the pain that he hadn't felt in those final moments. The wound in his chest and side is ugly, the metal blackened and peeled back as if by giant hands to expose torn and damaged circuitry that crackles with dying energy.

"Why didn't you predict that they might have had a weapon there, that they might try and kill us all? You could plan to avoid your own death, so why not mine?"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"A plan didn't save my life. It was luck," says Jaime, avoiding his gaze. "Luck and quick-thinking."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"And when the pirates fired their weapon? What happened then?" Brainy continues relentlessly. "Your scarab is easily more powerful than I am; even at half strength you could have helped me deflect the blast! Then the crew would be safe and no one would have had to die!"

There's a flicker in the exposed circuitry, a crackle of connections burning out and, despite the glass between them, Jaime can smell the acrid reek of smoke and hear Brainy's hiss of pain perfectly.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"I was trying to keep the others from getting pulled through. I--I didn't move fast enough."

His expression is pleading.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't good enough."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

There's another shower of sparks, and it suddenly becomes obvious that Brainy isn't pressing against the glass so much as leaning against it, his body starting to slide towards the ground as systems give out one by one.

"No, you weren't," he says. "You were supposed to le-ead us, to make sure everyone was sa-a-afe." There's an all too familiar glitch creeping into his voice. "And you couldn't even do that.

"So I- I had to pay the price for your failure." He shoots Jaime a dark, angry look. "And all you can say is sorry?!"

He's on the ground now, only hanging on due to sheer determination. The damage is spreading even further as parts of his external armour fragment and fall away to reveal a dark emptiness filled with the dying flashes of circuits burning out. Brainy's voice is far from sounding even remotely human as he speaks for one last time.

"I'll never forgive you."

Then the last light burns out and he's gone.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Jaime's eyes close tight, but tears manage to squeeze out through his eyelids anyway.

"What was I supposed to do? I'm just--I'm just--"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"You're weak," says the person that Brother Eye has become. And Jaime looks up...

At himself.



"You're so weak it's disgusting."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"I'm not--" he sniffs.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Look at you! You're crying. You cry all the time. You sob and whine and it's always about you. You you you! Your pain, your guilt, your angst. All that matters is you get comforted, that mommy and daddy pat you on the back, that your friends kiss your boo boos, and if you can get that, you think it's all okay. And it's back to Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, Mr. Noble."

He whines in Jaime's--well, his own voice.

"'I'm so sorry and being sorry makes it all okay. I can still pat myself on the back and tell myself I'm a gooood person.'"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"That's not what I think. That's not--"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"But you're not noble, are you. At least not as noble as you like to make everyone think you are. Have you told everyone about your little program in the Sensoriums? About where you've been hiding all this time?"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Silence.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Of course not. Mister Honesty is all about telling the truth when he's not the one that has to do it. It's okay for you to tell everyone to lie to Lex Luthor to try to get him to play along with your little ruse. And it's also okay when you build a program in the Sensoriums to study the weaknesses of the space pirates because you hope you can hunt them down and kill them--"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Jaime cuts himself off.

"I don't kill."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Really? Then what to do call decapitating and vaporizing holographic space pirates? Last I checked, most sentient beings needed a head to, y'know, actually live."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"They're just holograms! I'd never--"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"--let loose?" Jaime suggests, and he crouches down.

"But you want to. Deep down inside, you want to just...clean up the world. And here's the thing: you could."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Not like that."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"There's one little problem: The way you're doing it? Kinda sucks. I mean, how many people were in the Pod Caverns again? Then there were those nice folks at Vista Verde. Nadia..."

He jabs Jaime in the chest.

"All because you're weak. You know it, I know it, you're enemies know it. You're soft. And it's only going to get more people killed, because, sad to say, you are no Ted Kord." He adds, glibly,

He pulls Jaime forward by the collar.

"That's what's so beautifully ironic about this. No matter what, you lose. You get to either watch as innocents die around you--probably some friends and crewmates, too--because you're an idealistic powder puff. OR you can deal with it all by doing all that you're truly capable of--but would wind up basically selling your soul in the process. Sticky little situation, that."

He slaps Jaime on the cheek, gently.

"But it doesn't matter anymore, does it."

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

All Jaime can do is try to catch his breath, try to stop crying. His head is reeling, and he feels like he's drowning in all his failures.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

The other Jaime suits up, and looks down at him, pityingly.

"I am your future, Jaime Reyes. You get to be a jaded, cynical, immoral piece of crap--that does everything he can to get the job done. That's what happens to idealists like you, that's what happens when they're as weak as you are."

His arm forms into a cannon and he aims it at Jaime's head.

"On the up side, it'll totally sell way more action figures. People love gritty anti-heroes."