http://daemonomicon.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] daemonomicon.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] trans_92010-01-08 09:26 pm

Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

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.]
governmentninja: (Questioning)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-18 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
"Alessa," he repeated, but he instantly clamped down on it. But the mentioning of her name couldn't be a coincidence. He'd have to seek her out when he woke up.

"The people you were here with, the Daligig. What were they like?"

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 07:17 am (UTC)(link)
"They tried to make me help them at first."

This is the part he doesn't like to talk about. Two years older than he remember, chunks of his memory missing...

"I woke--" He breathes in deeply, and his gaze is directed at his arrow tattoo. "I woke up--covered in blood."

To this day, he doesn't know who it belonged to, but he'd been bleeding, so he hoped it was his own. Never had anyone hoped that much blood was their own.

"I went into the Avatar State and attacked them. They used a thingy. In one of their hands. A weapon. It was like being hit by lightning again, but the next time I woke up I wasn't hurt. That time, I was calmer. I felt...strange. Sleepy. Calm, even though I still should have been scared."

He'd been drugged.

"I listened to them that time. They told me about the war, about the Ohm, they told me our worlds were gone, and that they'd saved as many people as they could--I asked them about my friends and my world, and they told me--" His eyes close tight. "They told me my friends were safe, but that my world-- I didn't believe them so they showed me."

Tears squeeze out between his eyelids.

"I asked how I was still even alive, because of what I am, but they said things I didn't understand. One of them tried to show me with pictures. Somehow they have a way of--of cutting people away from their worlds. Even if they're supposed to be connected. That I was human enough, that if I had just been a spirit, I would have died when all of it died but since I was in a human body, they could take me away like the other people."

More tears squeeze out.

"Sorry," he sniffles. "I still can't think about it, without-- I think maybe that's why maybe whatever happened with that girl drove me crazy. Them showing me the memory was just showing me the memory. There weren't the feelings. I was probably already messed up from feeling the world die, without dying with it, when whatever happened happened."
Edited 2010-01-18 07:23 (UTC)
governmentninja: (Helping Hand)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-18 07:58 am (UTC)(link)
"It's alright." Leon reached out to put a hand on the boy's shoulder, but wasn't going to force that issue if he pulled away. The kid was upset, and understandably so, but also rather twitchy.

He gave Aang a few moments to compose himself before he continued with the questioning.

"So after that, you lived on the ship, and started working with them again?"

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 08:03 am (UTC)(link)
He doesn't push his hand away, but he wipes at his eyes with his hands.

"Yes." He adds, "...Sort of."

It had been more like for them.
governmentninja: (Suspicion)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-18 08:06 am (UTC)(link)
He raised an eyebrow at that.

"Meaning?"

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 08:12 am (UTC)(link)
"They were like General Fong. At first." He wipes at his face again.

"He was a general back home. From the Earth Kingdom. He tried to get me to go into the Avatar State so we could use it against the Fire Nation. But when I decided it was too dangerous and I wanted to stop, he tried to force me to. He made me think he'd killed Katara by burying her underground--I couldn't stop him. So then I did go into the Avatar State."

In the mirror off to the side, Aang can be seen, eyes and tattoos glowing, blowing away all the Earth Kingdom soldiers around him. Great stone wheels get flung off and embedded into the stone walls of the base. It's a display of extreme power and unbridled destruction, and he's obviously not in control of his actions.

"They were the same." His eyes narrow at the memory. "They wanted to use me as a weapon. Against the Ohm."
Edited 2010-01-18 08:22 (UTC)
governmentninja: (On My Throne)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-18 08:31 am (UTC)(link)
"I see." Which may have explained why this particular group of people were chosen. Weapons to be used in this war.

"What can you tell me about the Ohm in specific?"

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 08:43 am (UTC)(link)
"The Daligig were bad. They hurt me until I told them I wouldn't cooperate unless they stopped. They were afraid of getting in trouble with the people higher up than them, the generals, for how they were treating me, so they tried to work with me and let me help them with my 'Bending."

He shakes his head.

"But the reason they're like that is because they're desperate. The Ohm are worse. They're giant bugs, and there's all different kinds that can do all different things. And they destroy everything. Buildings, people, trees, everything. Or they change things somehow, things that are supposed to be. They mostly had me fight when they were doing the open attacks though. I wouldn't kill--I--I don't kill. But I could hurt them, and mostly I changed the terrain so the Daligig and the armies of the worlds' being attaacked could fight them better. I made barricades, and moats that they filled with weapons that made lights and fire."

He wouldn't kill, but he had fought in a war before this. He hadn't stopped other soldiers from doing it, and had helped them fight. The same had gone for the fight against the Ohm.

"They don't talk, and no one knows if they even think. They come to worlds in swarms that spread over every land there is. They can't be stopped--all that can be done is holding them back and trying to evacuate as many people as possible to save them, and get them onto the skyships so they can go through the the big spirit-gates to other worlds."

Still looking at the arrow tattoo at his hand, and clutching his staff tightly, he says, "They--they eat people. They eat the dead."
governmentninja: (Tragedy)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-18 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
He made a noise of deep thought as he listened. Most of that seemed to fall in line with what they knew so far. Though this still gave them a better idea of what they were facing.

World killing bugs...

"Alright. Now, back to you. We have a lot of people trying to find you. You need to tell me what happened when you went to look for the team checking on the stone; how did you get trapped?"

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
"I went in with the team that wanted to find out where the other team went. Then bad things started to happen. People started to see things, and go crazy, and the monsters came. They couldn't get in contact with the rest of the ship--the only time they could, it sounded like there was fighting and screaming and they said the skyship was under attack."

The pirate attack on the ship, most likely.

Sweeping a hand over his face and rubbing his bald head, he gets up and starts pacing around.

"They had a machine there. They put me in it so I could go into the Avatar State and stay in it a long time. It hurt the monsters and it protected me from the things that were happening to make people go crazy. It also meant I was connected to the shields to hold him in. The seals. They took little bits of my blood when I was in the Avatar State because it helped keep the seal strong. That's where my body is now. That's how I can go into people's dreams, which I couldn't do before, instead of just the Spirit World. That's why he's not free. Yet."

He keeps pacing, staff clutched in his hand--he never liked sitting still, and especially doesn't right now when he's talking about something he doesn't want to be.

"It got worse. More dangerous. I--I couldn't save them." Despite their treatment of him, he looks regretful. "And since then, I've been holding the Nightmare King in. The Daligig had showed me where my friends were in the pods, and there are millions of people. I knew I had to keep him in until someone came, until Stacy did something to stop him somehow, or all those people..."

All those people would've been defenseless.

Sleeping, as that insidious beast, that creeping horror started to break into the reality of the ship where they dreamed, helpless.
Edited 2010-01-19 06:52 (UTC)
governmentninja: (Savior)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-19 07:40 am (UTC)(link)
Leon didn't try to stop the kid from pacing. Admittedly, the first thing that crossed his mind when he had a moment to mentally look at all of that was how is this kid even still alive? Though he's learned not to underestimate this crew and the things this ship could do.

"You've done one hell of a job holding this thing back," he admitted. "But now that we know where you are, we'll be able to come and get you soon. You just have to keep holding on for a little while longer." Though he wasn't sure how much more time this kid had.

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 07:48 am (UTC)(link)
Aang stops pacing, turns to face Leon, and leans against his staff.

"You can't save me."

governmentninja: (Saves)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-19 07:54 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm going to try to anyway," was the immediate response.

Sorry, Aang, but as far as Leon is concerned, the situation is not hopeless for you until you are dead. Or flesh eating undead.

Currently you are neither, and therefore worth the attempt to save.

"It's part of the job."

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 08:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Banishing the Nightmare King will hurt me. It'll probably kill me. But I have to stay in the machine until the Nightmare King is gone or he'll get free."

His tattoed hand clenched more tightly around his staff, and the authority that he speaks with is not in the voice of the average sixteen-year-old. It's not even in the voices of some adults.

"That's my job."
governmentninja: (Sly Grin)

[personal profile] governmentninja 2010-01-19 09:06 am (UTC)(link)
Leon normally would've just linefaced at the boy. Instead he rolled his eyes, though there was something of a smile there.

Teenagers.

"I'll be seeing you soon, kid." The crew was coming to save you whether you want it or not, Aang.

[identity profile] jesushasayak.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:47 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, he's way, way older than you, Leon.

There's almost a smile back. Almost.

"I appreciate the sentiment, at least?"

And with that, he leans his staff against his shoulder, presses his hands together in front of him, and bows politely.