Issue 1 Downtime

Alex's dreams were much less pleasant than usual.

Jeering faces came at him, fists swung at him. Every turn, he was knocked down, beaten around. And for the most part, he was letting it happen.

The result of trying to stop it was worse.

Behind him lay those results. Corpses of people with their heads smashed open, their guts spilled out, impaled through the chest... every time he tried to fight back, something new and more horrible happened, so... here he was. Just letting himself be beaten senseless.

Then in a flash of silver light, Regan was standing beside him, swinging her sword at Alex's attackers.

"Get away from him!" Regan yelled.

"No! Don't!" Alex, panicked, grabbed at Regan, trying to get her out of the way, but of course being hampered by the guys beating him down. "Don't hurt them, it's... my fault..."

"Don't be a fucking idiot," Regan growls, "You can get the shit kicked out of you on your own time."

There's a bark and a large, ghost-like dog barrels into one of Alex's attackers, tackling it.

"It's... my fault," he said, the attack not exactly hard to drive off by someone who was, y'know, actually trying to do it. Nevertheless... the beating had obviously taken a lot out of him. "I'm not... worth anyone getting hurt over."

"What kind of selfish asshole decides that for other people?" Regan snaps at him, slashing down another attacker, "Want to lay down and have a little nap? Go ahead."

"But don't tell me what to do," Regan says, pulling her sword from an attackers chest, "Nobody tells me what to do."

To his slight credit, Alex did start to try to fight his way to his feet. But he had been beaten down pretty hard, and from the bodies behind him, this hadn't been a short fight by any means. Still, by the time Regan had (without much difficulty) finished or driven off the last of the mob, he'd managed to get to his feet. He looked around at the bodies he'd left, and the bodies she'd left, and was quiet for just a moment. "Thanks," he finally said, sounding sincere, but... not quite himself. It was pretty clear that this wasn't the Alex who'd been ready to jump down a hoard of demons that had been coming at her a few days past.

"I didn't do it for you," Regan says, patting her ghost dog on the head. The dog wags her tail appreciatively.

"So why are you so depressed?" Regan asks Alex.

"All right, fine, you're a horrible bitch, is that better?" Alex shot back, bristling. "And still, thank you," he added, like that was the real insult.

Also, completely avoiding her question.

"Fuck you too," Regan says happily.

He shook his head. "Scary thing is that you're actually starting to make sense to me," he shot at her without much bite.

"It's this place," Regan says, "It gets in your head."

"...That was bad even for you."

Regan smiles weakly, "I'm not kidding."

"I feel like I've been here for days now and it just...eats away at you," Regan says, "Every time I think I'm safe, there's another demon horde or awful memory or something."

"I feel like I'm going crazy."

"Long night?" Alex asked sympathetically. Looking around, he figured he knew a little bit about that. "Probably can't last much longer, at least. For whatever that's worth. Probably not much, but at least you'll feel better when you wake up."

"I don't think I wake up anymore," Regan says, "I just...I feel like I'm trapped here."

"Maybe I'm just crazy."

"Of course you wake up," Alex. "I just talked to you at breakfast."

"I don't remember that," Regan says, "I just remember, well, all this."

Alex frowned, latching onto this problem to avoid his own. "Well... you don't seem crazy," he offered. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No, it's just nice to have company," Regan says.

"I can do that, at least," he said. He smirked. "Well, now that I'm here, we'll probably wake up when something starts to happen again. But yeah."

"It's okay," Regan says, "I'm getting used to it."

"Not sure what kind of company I am tonight," he admitted.

"Can't be any worse than the demons," Regan says.

The dog barks.

"Okay, you're probably worse then Sunny, but Sunny is seven shades of awesome. It's unfair to compare you two."

"Nothing like a dream dog for company, right?" Alex said, walking over to pet the dog.

"...I tried to kill someone today."

"That sucks," Regan says, "Did they deserve it?"

"Yeah, kinda?" he said. "I just... I don't know. It was too fun."

"I know what you mean," Regan says, "But you have to fight that feeling."

"It...changes you. Especially in a place like this."

He nodded, shuddering a little. "I... don't know how to feel about it. I mean, seriously, fuck those guys, they were assholes. But... I didn't do it because they were bad guys, or because they hurt Ben, I just... wanted to break them. I wanted to feel th-" he cut off at that and shook his head, trying not to remember any more.

Regan awkwardly puts her hand on Alex's shoulder, "Come on. Those guys sound like assholes."

"No big loss, right?"

"Well, they all combined into a giant robot a few minutes later, so I don't really know what happened to them in the end," he admitted.

"Yes, I did just say that."

"Are you sure that wasn't the dream?" Regan asks.

"Oh, trust me, I thought of that. Yeah, I was awake. I reeeeeeally liked that idea, I grabbed onto it REALLY hard before I had to give it up."

"The university is really weird, you know that?" Regan says.

"Remember when the most stressful thing was whether or not we'd win the next football game or making tryouts?" Alex said dryly.

"I repress those memories."

"I'll take being a perpetual disappointment over this crap any day, though," Alex pointed out. "Thought I might actually be able to turn things around here. Well guess what! Nope!"

"What were you hoping to turn around exactly?"

He shrugged. "I never could get anything right. That kind of says it all, really." He looked around, briefly wondering what it took to change their surroundings. All the bodies kind of got to him after a while. "Kinda sounds stupid now... I was actually excited when I found out I was a mutant. Figured maybe I could actually find something I was good at now. Doesn't matter, though. Whatever I do, there's someone in the family that's done it better."

"Your family?"