322/A Dream Visit - Literally

A Dream Visit - Literally
Date of Scene:	21 August 2015
Location:	Plot Room #2
Synopsis:	A protector of dreams, able to actually arrive within one's night-time visions, comes upon unusual and exotic sights... but what do they mean?
Cast of Characters:	Runealy Waldia, Seishi Tamashige

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Runealy Waldia has posed:
Dreams are varied things, and everyone's takes a different shape. There are certain trends, though. As they rest, their minds might generate impossible worlds that let them explore the unknown. Or enjoy special powers as they fly over the city or a forest. Or have their deepest fantasies 'come true' (until they wake up, and have to accept that they did not truly have it within their grasp after all). Others come up with bizarre, inexplicable things of color and sound that make no sense to the conscious world.

And some come up with very specific scenarios. Such is the case in Runealy's mind this night. She stands in full magical garb in an elaborate building of marble, gold, crystal, and stained glass. Several clear pillars, framed in gold but made of crystaline materials that one can see through, lie empty. Some are shattered, their pieces littering the gray stone floor and wood-framed, stone bridges running over small indoor 'lakes'. Further ahead, thick stained glass presents a white shield shape with a pink heart set in its center. The wall beyond this is framed in gold as well, with a red energy field running within its boundaries. The field is as wide as a typical house, and about as tall, though it's impossible to see how 'thick' it is. What can be seen is there are several cracks running through the energy field, and they are slowly widening.

There are also a lot of people in here, fighting. It's pretty easy to determine the 'sides' involved. Four figures fight near either of the two bridges, a pair apiece. One is a young man in a green forest cloak, using a staff, bow, and plants. Another, around his age, is in knightly armor with a sword that sweeps fire around itself. The other bridge has someone a little older than them, though she stands in white attire and fights with a rapier crackling with lightning. A young man also in knightly armor fights beside her, his sword shining light-rays in various directions. They face off against a mix of Sailor Senshi, Pretty Cure, and more. Fate Testarossa is there, as are Puella Magi such as Mami and Homura who rain gunfire down at the four defenders. Demons, creatures of black and red skin with broad bat-style wings, wielding claws and fire and jagged axes, work alongside them. The defenders are holding up surprisingly well, hitting back as hard as they take. They're losing by sheer numbers, but giving a good account of themselves.

Runealy Waldia has posed:
Further ahead, on the glass shield-and-heart emblem, stands the princess who has refused to give her name to anyone among Tokyo's defenders. She too is fighting a horde of opponents. Sailor Moon. Miss White in barrier jacket, plus a copy of Miss White as an 'artificial Witch'. Several demons work beside them, as does Tuxedo Kamen. Akashimaru as well, though this dream version of her has some errors; Runealy's mind has had to guess at what a war fan-based fighting style is like, and she has opted to treat it as an unusually powerful bashing weapon. Whenever Akashimaru's fan strikes against one of the princess' red forcefield bubbles, it instantly shatters and knocks Runealy back several feet from the impact.

Unlike the knights on the bridges, Runealy's efforts are making little progress. She's doing a good job of dodging the sheer number of attacks being sent her way, boot wings lighting up with a silver glow as she jumps one way and then another, shield-bubble coming up to ward off other attacks... but whenever she retaliates, she gets no results at all. Demons outright laugh as red energy rays from her wand do nothing to them. Sailor Moon just looks puzzled if hit by the wand itself, her expression one of wondering what that was even vaguely hoping to accomplish. Tuxedo Kamen just outright dodges.

And as for Akashimaru, her fan has just caused one of Runealy's orb wand-tips to bounce off and be returned to sender; Runealy is smashed against the ground in a burst of emerald sparkles, flailing her wand in a wide defensive sweep to ward off a demon pouncing her as she tries to get up.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
It's so strange, riding into other people's dreams. Even in the most surreal dreamscapes where the rules of physics and basic causality are out to lunch, the images are so vivid that it's hard to remember none of it is real. That's the danger of dream-riding, O-Yasu has told her: get too caught up in the dream, and there's a risk of forgetting that it's a dream at all, becoming lost in the dream and unable to find your way back or even remember that you should. Seishi has to remind herself constantly not to get too immersed, but even though she knows she should stay back and venture only far enough to look for signs of her enemy or hints that might lead her to another of her allies, all too often she finds that she just can't keep herself from getting involved.

Like now.

Metal-shod hooves strike with sharp tones against stone; mounted on a dark bay horse saddled with incongruously modern tack, dressed in her red samurai garb, Seishi rides into a dream and finds herself in the thick of a battle she does not understand.

The sides at least are easy enough to distinguish. What they're fighting over, not so much. Seishi's eyes sweep over the carnage, searching for something that will make any of this make sense - many of these faces and figures, she doesn't know, but some she recognizes and she can't imagine what might cause them to fight such a pitched battle alongside these demonic-looking creatures.

Where is the dreamer?

When she sees herself among the combatants, sees the flash of green as Runealy goes down, she's pretty sure she has her answer. Without giving herself time to think twice about it, Seishi presses her heels into her horse's sides and the gelding surges forward, towards the glass emblem and the princess fighting upon it. Reins in one hand, she tugs the Shinken from her belt with the other, using it only to bat away any weaponry that threatens to impede her charge - at least, not until she sees several more demons threatening to swarm the downed princess.

In a flash of red, the arc of a bow curves out from the tessen in her hand. Her fingers find the string of fate and draw it back, loosing a heavy black arrow that takes one of the demons right through the eye.

"Princess!"

Runealy Waldia has posed:
In this place, physics actually seem fairly consistent. Whatever Seishi would realistically expect to do and accomplish in reality, is pretty close to what she gets here. She moves at normal speeds, and strikes with something in line with her normal power. Horse hooves clop against the stone floor as they should, bringing her through the indoor battlefield. Interestingly enough however, very few people move to attack Seishi. Nobody fighting by either bridge does so. Dream-Homura doesn't send rockets her way, Dream-Sailor Jupiter has no interest in trying to punch her. In fact, the most resistance she gets is from the four defenders... and they quickly become too busy to put up any serious effort to stop her beyond token attacks of plant, fire, light-ray, and lightning. In better situations they would represent real threats to her progress, but in this dream they are already overwhelmed by impossibly high numbers. Even the demons are leaving her alone.

Or rather, they were until Seishi unleashed an arrow on one of them. They scatter, staring over at Seishi with baffled expressions and angry hissing noises. One flies a few feet above the ground, swooping toward Seishi and horse with an ugly, twisted axe at the ready.

Yet even as Seishi arrives, Runealy isn't quite sure who to identify her as... and, somewhat incorrectly, interprets her as a second Akashimaru rather than seeing the true person underneath. "What? Two of you!?" Despite the help Seishi just offered, Runealy is dismayed by this.

Her dismay is followed by copies of nearly everyone present forming. Her four friends do not gain this benefit, but they find they're now facing doubles of their current opponents. More demons appear. Only Dream-Akashimaru and Dream-Miss White aren't doubled, by virtue of already having two of themselves here in one way or another. The Guardian Knights find they are quickly losing momentum, struggling to put up any real offense as their reinforced opponents begin openly laughing.

This laughter repeats around Runealy, who winces. "Have to do something, or else this will...!" She doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, Runealy launches into the air with a boosted jump carrying her toward the tall stone ceiling - a domed one, with a crystal layout in its center. As she descends from this leap, the princess aims down at Seishi. Not Dream-Akashimaru, but at the very person who came to her aid. "You didn't have to bring even more of them! You've already won!" She cries out, openly despairing at how unfair this battle seems... and launches a wand-orb at Seishi. There may be time to dodge it, but even if not... interestingly enough, this attack will do virtually no damage on impact, even if it bursts into green sparkles upon her. This is in contrast to any blows the Guardian Knights might have landed. They were /busy/, not ineffective; if any of their blows did land upon Seishi, they would have carried some real impact to them.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
It's an object lesson in the damage she could do by meddling too much in someone else's dreams. Seishi's eyes widen in horror as the other combatants begin to duplicate, a consequence she understands clearly only after it's too late to have prevented it.

"No!" she cries out as Runealy fires upon her. The bow vanishes into sparks of red, becoming a tessen again, but her reaction's not fast enough to deflect the shot. At least it doesn't hurt... but that, too, is worrying in its own way. Gathering up the reins, Seishi heels her mount into motion again and begins laying into the demons on either side of her in earnest, bashing the blunt instrument of the closed fan against them with determined vigor.

"You're mistaken!" she calls to the princess over the din of battle. "I'm not here to fight you!"

Runealy Waldia has posed:
Unlike Dream-Akashimaru's fan, Seishi's war fan acts closer to how she would expect. It's guided by her will and knowledge, and these impose themselves upon Runealy's understanding such that Seishi's version of the weapon is behaving correctly. That is to say, it's no longer delivering nonstop earth-shaking blows... but it's still effective; one or two strikes from it are enough to either cause any given demon to dissipate into black-purple mist before vanishing from existence, or cause them to retreat while nursing significant injuries.

None of them pose any real challenge to her, though. Their ranks are easy to drive through, and their unlikely allies such as Dream-Sailor Moon (both of her) and Dream-Tuxedo Kamen are actually willing to mostly let Seishi lead the charge while they hurl various attacks at the princess from afar. Some demons have forgiven their new grudge with Seishi and renew their attacks on Runealy too, though some continue to rush at the new intruder who they feel has betrayed their alliance.

Dream-Akashimaru suddenly gains new abilities, her own fan shifting into a bow and arrow set to launch projectiles at Runealy as well; as the princess' understanding of the dream-protector grows, this particular dream's version of her simply gets more and more impressive. The arrows are dodged and blocked at first; boot-wings light up to hurl her aside from the first few shots, bubble-shield deflects another few, then one punches through and grazes Runealy's free arm... which stops working, hanging limp at her side despite how light the blow was.

This still leaves the one wielding the wand, though. And Runealy isn't immediately convinced by Seishi's protests. "I guess you don't have to fight me, do you? You could just ride around and wait until time runs out, and then you'll get what you want!" Tears flow as Runealy makes this unfair, unjustified accusation. They're joined by another wand-orb, though this one breaks apart in mid-air to try to 'pepper' Seishi with a wide spray of green sparkles... and just like the previous attack, these do no damage even if they strike her or the horse she rode in on.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
This isn't working. This isn't helping. The more she does, the more the dream turns it into a weapon against the dreamer; utterly at a loss, Seishi reins in her horse and, after a moment of internal flailing, stuffs the Shinken back into her belt.

Can she get killed in someone else's dream? she wonders. Something to ask O-Yasu about. If she lives through this.

Worry about that later. Try to repair the damage now - if she can. The horse stamps and crowhops beneath her, jostled and threatened by demons, lashing out at one behind it with a steel-shod hoof. Seishi keeps her seat as best she can, hoping that she isn't making a terrible mistake. "What I want is nothing that I can take from you!" she calls back to Runealy. "Remember what I told you? Who I am? Princess--"

She hesitates, takes a deep breath. Is this right? Should she just leave the dream to play itself out? But she's already made a nightmare worse just by being here, a nightmare that is fertile ground for her enemy. She has to do something to make it right--

"--you are dreaming!"

Runealy Waldia has posed:
Even Seishi's horse seems to be able to give a fairly good account of itself, its kick sending a demon sprawling back several feet and landing in a heap. It doesn't dissolve into mist, but that was still a meaningful blow to the dark creature. Yet they seem to be among the lesser threats here, any one of them nowhere near as impressive as Tokyo's heroes.

Yet describing this scene as a nightmare is probably apt. The building they're within is beautifully crafted and vast, but at the rate its pillars and stonework are being damaged, it's looking more like a ruin. Cracks continue to spread along the energy field on the back wall, something that the already crying princess sees and causes her to tense up.

She doesn't get long to linger on it. Even though Seishi isn't attacking her, the creatures the princess has conjured up within her own dream continue to attack... and are reinforced again, as Tadase and Amulet Heart appear to begin striking at Runealy with Tadase's light-rays and heart-shaped blasts from his companion. She leaps over a demon's claw swipes, only for the newly arrived pair's attacks to strike her straight up into the ceiling!

She lands in a hurt heap on the ground after that, encasing herself in another energy-bubble even as attackers pound away on it. Incredibly, the forcefield holds for now. She stares past the attacks to face Seishi, confused. "Stop joking! This feels pretty real to me!" Not everyone is able to acknowledge their mind's fictions as such, not when they seem so vivid and encompass their current 'reality.' "But what /do/ you want, if you're not trying to fight me and you can't take what you're after?" She may have misunderstood some of Seishi's protests.

Nonetheless, it is some progress. The princess isn't attacking her at the moment, perhaps for lack of any opportunity to do so. She's trying to talk, if doing so with tears streaming down her face as she speaks in terrified, utterly puzzled shouts.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
Once again, Seishi urges her horse forward, taking advantage of how the greatest threats here don't seem inclined to attack her. The demons she tramples over, kicking at one that comes at her from the side trying to rake claws across her mount's ribs. It's slow going - slower yet because the horse, impossibly tolerant as it's already been, tosses its head with white-rimmed eyes and resists the command to push forward into more danger - but a bit at a time, she's getting closer to Rune's shielding bubble.

"I want to help," Seishi insists, wide-eyed and earnest. "I want to understand. This doesn't have to happen!" A sweeping gesture of her arm, sleeve fluttering, encompasses the battle, the swarm of enemies. "What you're afraid of doesn't have to happen."

Runealy Waldia has posed:
"You're not the first one to say that, but all of you are the same and you won't give me what I need!" Runealy shrieks at Seishi, having fallen into a panic. "And it's already happening, right now! Look around you!" She says this even though Seishi has indeed been doing just that, indicating the whole area just moments ago.

"But maybe I can...!" A flash of insight and inspiration comes to her. The princess dismisses her shield, and launches an orb at one of the side walls. This time, the burst has some effect as stone shatters with a hole wide enough for her to run through... apparently she can damage terrain, if not her enemies.

She rushes for it... or makes a stumbling, limping run through the hole, at least. She doesn't get much further than that, stopping to have a coughing fit right on the grass outside. Nonetheless, she's right there if Seishi wishes to follow and clearly not going anywhere right away.

Interestingly, the moment Runealy got outside... the fight inside stopped. Activity itself inside stopped. The red energy-wall stops swirling, its cracks stop spreading. The Guardian Knights have utterly frozen in place, but mercifully so have their attackers. Several of the demons become hazy and undetailed, and even many people inside lose visual clarity. Only Runealy and Seishi remain mobile, along with perhaps bits of the weather outside. The battle appears to have been suspended in time.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
Seishi does follow, of course, though maybe she shouldn't. As she reaches the hole in the wall, she's forced to dismount - she lowers herself down very gingerly from the saddle, hesitant at first to let her foot touch the floor. The horse doesn't disappear, though, which is a little heartening, enough that Seishi risks leaning into the broken space in the wall.

"Princess," she says, more quietly now that she doesn't have to shout over the fighting. "Please just hear me out. I didn't come here to hurt what you're trying to protect... I didn't come here on purpose at all. It was an accident. I'm sorry that I've made things worse for you."

Runealy Waldia has posed:
The horse actually remains fully independent of Runealy's ability to render her own dream world. The fight, the building interior, and everyone conjured up as part of her dream have all stopped, but Seishi is an external influence. It just appears the princess cannot focus on two places at once in this regard, and so the building and occupants are becoming less 'real' and detailed.

As Seishi leans outside, she can see a mix of nature's beauty and twisted ugliness around it. Some of the grass and trees outside are perfectly green and healthy, but most of it is wilted and dying. The sky overhead is red, with black clouds that arc lightning above them. Wherever this is, it is not Tokyo. There are no skyscrapers, no Mitakihara Hospital, no traditional Japanese homes, no modern apartments. This place appears to be nestled at the edge of a forest and there is not so much as a modern road or lightbulb in sight.

Runealy herself fails to respond at first, still coughing... but eventually she manages to get it under control, looking back to Seishi. "I can't even carry out the last thing I was going to try... I physically can't do it, and I can't actually bring myself to, even now that everything is over. So..."

She falls to the withered grass, curling herself up into a ball with her still functional arm, wand dropped to the ground. "Fine, I'll listen. It's the last thing I'll ever get to do." Despite Seishi having mentioned earlier that this is a dream, Runealy seems convinced her situation is real, and she speaks with a broken voice that has lost any real defiance or strength to it. "Why weren't you helping your friends fight me, just now? You said you were going to, last time we met."

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
Now that she sees what lies outside the wall, for a moment Seishi is quiet, just taking in the sight of it. All that nature, all that destruction. "Is this what you're trying to save...?" she wonders in a murmur, voicing the question that comes to her mind without realizing it.

Then her eyes come back to Runealy, and she shakes her head. Calmer now, the horse seems content to stand, so Seishi dares to let go of the reins and slip through the broken wall, kneeling in seiza on the grass. "I've never wished to be your enemy," she says. "I only ever intended to fight you if I saw you attacking someone else like you were going to do to me. This..." She glances back over her shoulder, through the hole in the wall to the now-indistinct battleground. "...attacking you here wouldn't be protecting anyone."

Runealy Waldia has posed:
Runealy remains curled up in an injured ball, only able to face Seishi in her peripheral vision; no direct eye contact is made as the princess sits crying on the dead grass. "Trying wasn't good enough. It didn't matter how many lines we crossed or how good I thought we were doing, it just wasn't enough! They held up their end of it, did what they had to... couldn't have asked for better friends or knights, not in the slightest. This,"

She nudges a bit of ground with her foot, "All of this is on me. Even with every advantage, this is how it turned out. I just don't get why they're all waiting in there, someone besides you should have followed by now to finish this. But... don't worry. I'm not in any position to attack Tokyo ever again, so if that's what you wanted, you have it."

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
"That's not it at all," Seishi answers softly. Clenching her hands, she braces them against her thighs and tries to remind herself that this is a dream, a vision of hopelessness that doesn't have to truly come to pass. "Protecting Tokyo by sacrificing you and this place is no good either. That's never what I've wanted."

She's quiet for a moment, before, making a decision, she dares to scoot a little closer. Not very much, yet, in case her approach only distresses the princess more - but she can't just sit there and watch Runealy suffer. "This fate can still be prevented," she says, willing the other girl to believe. "It's not too late."

Runealy Waldia has posed:
"Maybe that's not what you wanted, but it's what you have now," Runealy comments in a low, dejected tone. "All that's really left is to, what, tell people the two most useless words they'll ever hear from me? 'I'm sorry'?"

Interestingly, Seishi is allowed to approach. Runealy doesn't reach for her wand, try to move away, or do much of anything to oppose this at all. "You're a terrible comedian," the princess responds to thoughts that the ruin around her can be prevented; it already has, after all. "You should leave. They'll be here for y--"

Seishi is suddenly ejected from the dream. In an abandoned convenience store in Tokyo, lying atop a bed salvaged from the trash, Runealy's eyes shoot wide open with a gasping breath. A dream... a nightmare, after all? So it seems. "That didn't go like it usually does." It's not the first time she has had this particular nightmare, even if this iteration of it was different due to Seishi's interference. "That was really weird..." A whispered comment to herself, before she sinks further under her patchwork blanket, not quite ready to face the real world just yet.

Seishi Tamashige has posed:
It's not the first time that Seishi has been abruptly thrown out of a dream, but the violent wrench of it is no easier to weather via experience. She wakes with a jolt in the dark stillness of her bedroom, in her own bed, shaken and very much alert.

At the foot of her bed, O-Yasu stirs, looking at her through the dim light that filters through her window from outside. "You're being reckless," the baku comments.

"Not right now, please." With an unsteady sigh, Seishi pushes back the covers and sits up, scooting around until her feet slide off the side of the bed to touch the floor. She needs to go splash some water on her face, and try to make some sense out of the things she saw.