Issue 1 Downtime

That night, Alex tossed in his sleep, frowning at... well, who knew?

The promethium ring on his finger, though, seemed to glow faintly as his dreams began to unfold.

Where am I? he thought as he looked around.

Alex would find himself in a large network of darkened caverns, dimly lit by candles set into the wall that burned unnaturally blue. He was standing on a long pathway of steps that led down into a yawning pit.

As he moved down further into the darkness he would pass cells made of various materials. Metal, wood, obsidian, and even bone. Each one held different fantastic and horrific looking creatures that shied away if he approached. There was no locks on the cells and no apparent way of releasing any of the animals.

Further down, he began hearing familiar cries. As he reached the ground floor, he would see the source: Regan was suspended by chains locked around her arms and wrists. Her signature hoodie had been torn away and left crumpled on the ground, leaving her in a ripped t-shirt and jeans.

Spirits didn't bleed or bruise. There were no marks on her, but she looked to be in quite a bit of pain.

"Shit," Alex growled, running over. He took a look at how she was suspended, then grabbed onto another set of chains on the wall, syncing with them and absorbing them into his body. "Just hang on, I'll get you down," he said, pushing up underneath her to take some of the pressure off her arms as he reached up to the chains, making the shackles melt apart around her one at a time.

Regan groans, "Alex?"

As she's freed, she collapses onto him.

"What's happening?"

He pretty much expected that, so he made sure he had a good grip on her and helped her down to the ground before he shifted back to flesh and blood and gave up the super-strength. "I don't know. Don't know where we are, just... found you there." He was carefully checking her over to see if she was all right. "How'd we get here?"

"Another dream?" Regan suggests, "I mean...this is Limbo."

Alex looked around, grabbing onto the heavy iron chain he'd synced with, getting ready to cover her if he needed to. "Limbo, huh?" He gave it another few seconds consideration. "This place sucks."

"Really? Because I was having a wonderful time," Regan says, "We should get out of here."

The sound of someone sobbing echoes through the chamber. A door slides open and something enormous begins to approach from the shadows, scraping its long claws against the blackened stone of the floor.

Alex's grip tightened on the chain as he merged with it, moving his fingers experimentally to test his agility in this form. "If there are any really important weird survival facts here, now's the time to tell me. Think we're about to have company," he whispered.

"Yeah, here's a really good one," Regan says, grabbing Alex's hand, "Run."

Pulling him away from the approaching demon, Regan begins heading up the stairs.

Pulling Alex was exactly like pulling a statue, but fortunately he shifted back so that he could run after her. "You know where we are?" he asked, as quietly as he could manage, "Or are we running blind here?"

"This looks like one of the Pits," Regan says, "It's sort of like a dungeon."

The demon screeched up at them as they ran up the stairs. Apparently, it couldn't climb stairs.

After running for awhile, the stairs began to slowly change from burnt and heavy stones into wood. Everything around them slowly stretched and shifted as they went up until they were walking up a regular set of stairs into the attic of a house.

"...Yeah, I think this is a dream," Regan says, "This is my old attic."

Alex looked behind them to satisfy himself that no, nothing was following them. "Unless your house was a demonic torture pit, yeah... guess that's a safe assumption," he agreed as they walked up toward the attic.

Regan opens the door and they step into the attic. She shuts it behind them and locks it. Just in case.

"I guess we just wait until we wake up then?" Regan says, "Unless you really want to go back down and take your chances with the Balrog."

"That wa- actually, nevermind," he said, before he asked a stupid question. "Your attic, huh? Little random, I guess. Beats hell, though..."

"Yeah," Regan says, sitting on the floor, "I guess it makes a weird amount of sense. This was a...sort of special place. It was my hiding place, y'know? Where I felt safe."

Alex took another look around the room with this new information, then nodded. "Nevermind, then," he said, "Not random at all, I guess." Thinking about it that way, the setting had a sort of... feel to it that almost felt like his bedroom had, when he knew no one was going to have enough time to come in there and check on him. "Yeah," he said, looking once over at the door, "I know what you mean. Makes perfect sense, then."

"At least we're not naked this time," Regan says, leaning against the wall.

Alex chuckled at that. Damn. "Yeah, awful considerate of the demons, I guess." He sat down, leaning against the wall.

"Safe from what?" he asked after a minute. Again, he felt that weird feeling like he should feel bad or embarassed asking that, but he just couldn't manage to somehow.

Regan just shrugs, "Stuff."

She runs her fingernail along the ground restlessly. Occasionally sneaking glances up at Alex.

"All right," he said, nodding. It was her business, after all. She wasn't going to tell if it wasn't in her mind to...

And as those thoughts went through his head, they collided with the fact that he already knew she'd been... stuck in some sort of hell, had been murdered, and... was part demon now? And... this was what she wouldn't share.

He couldn't help chuckling a little bit.

"You know, I got my first kiss here?" Regan says, "I brought my best friend Kelly up here and told her I was into her. She kissed me right here, in front of this window."

"Of course, then she outed me and made fun of me for, like, a year," Regan says, "Which I never got. If she didn't like me, why did she even lead me on in the first place?"

"Don't know," Alex admitted. "Maybe she was, and then didn't want anyone to find out she liked girls? Still a shitty thing to do."

Regan shrugs, "It happens. Repeatedly."

"Shitty but true," he agreed. He shrugged. "Don't think I ever made enough of an impact on anything to get shit from anyone at school. Always thought that sucked, I'm kind of having reevaluate that."

There's an awkward pause.

Then Regan leans over and kisses Alex.

Which Alex returned with interest. That wasn't to say that there wasn't a bit of obvious nervousness, but... well, right then, in that place, it just seemed like the natural thing to do.

Regan continued kissing Alex, moving so that she's over him. FInally she breaks away.

"We really shouldn't do this," Regan says, "It's a bad idea."

"It's a dream, right?" Alex said. "Dreams can be whatever we want them to be."

"If you don't want it to be this? Just get off of me."

It didn't take long for Regan to make a decision. She pressed her body against his, kissing him again.

"Better hurry," Regan say, "We might wake up any minute."

Alex kissed her back, the warning about waking up striking home. When you knew you were dreaming, that meant you were going to wake up soon, didn't it? Not wanting that, he did everything he could to focus on what was going on instead of the fact that they were dreaming. He was... very enthusiastic about it.

Which is why it was the perfect time for the windows to the attic to explode inward. Glass crashed into the ground as a body flew through the center window and landed in front of them with a sickening thump.

It was Kelly. She was dead and the bruising around her throat gave a clear idea of how it happened.

"Oh god!" Regan yelled, backing away from the body.

"What the hell!" Alex exclaimed in shock, staggering back with her, keeping between her and the body. Then he ran to the window to see who had thrown it. Apparently, this 'don't think about how this is all a dream' idea was working.

There was an enormous mob surrounding the house, carrying torches and pitchforks. It was disturbingly stereotypical.

Personally, I blame Carl Jung.

As Alex examined the crowd closer, he would see each of the "people" were actually hideous demons.

"Get her!" someone screamed in the crowd.

Regan stood up, summoning the soul blade to her hand before yelling out the window, "Come get some!"

Oh fuck this. Alex looked around for a moment, lacking anything he could grab and sync with. After a moment, his eyes settled on Regan and he grabbed her hand, grabbing the blunt of her sword with his other hand and syncing with it.

Regan could feel a surge of outside emotions as the promethium seemed to spread across his body from the sword, just like the last time, but not quite as extreme. Anger... inadequacy... hopeless resolve...

Spidery-looking demons on spindly legs began crawling up the walls.

"We're going to die," Regan says, sounding bleak.

It certainly didn't look good. There were thousands of the things and it looked like more were coming. It was a sea of demons all crying out for blood.

"Stand behind me," Alex said. "Get the ones that get past me." He was metal, right? It didn't even really HURT when he was freaking SHOT. That... SHOULD even things out, right?

And really... all these demon assholes, what right did they have to be hounding her? Or THEM, now, he supposed.

Well, if they were going to swarm the place, he was going to put up a damned good fight to keep them off of her.

And just as the demons charged....

The dream ended.