Chapter 9

Alice groggily walked among the streets of Brockton. A light rain fell slowly. Many pedestrians were running around, while those who had the vision to bring umbrellas were strolling. She couldn't help but perk up a little as she reached Boardwalk, an area of normalcy in this chaos of a city. Absent was the wear and tear common among buildings in the city. It helped that most of the villains were smart enough to leave one lifeblood of this dying place undamaged. She cracked her neck and walked toward a café.

*Jingle

With soft sounds of alarming bells, the door opened. Alice took a cursory glance across the café and walked toward the counter. After saying her orders, she idly glanced around. The style of this shop was interesting enough, Nordic. There were a few Viking helmets on the walls, axes and swords displayed at the back of the counter and a giant, glowing and very much invisible Futhark rune of protection and prosperity at the to- wait, what? Alice stared. Very sus indeed. Alice reasoned that this café may be one of the fronts of Empire88, but she wasn't sure if Nazis knew magic. That was a stupid question, of course, they would know, Nazis were known to be super into this thing, at least, original Nazis were. Again, Alice knew she was working on incomplete information. So, she shelved that thought for later and resolved to interrogate the manager of this café for more information later.

As she sat in an empty seat in a relatively empty part of the room, she saw some black persons entering and ordering. The leading one seemed to be confident, but the others were relatively cautious seeing the room's decorations. However, the leader of that group smiled and talked with the barista.

'So, this place was either not an Empire front or staff weren't Nazis,' Alice pondered.

Soon, a waiter placed her order on the table. There was a very cute cat made of microfoam on top of the cup. Alice stirred as she felt something tickled inside her mind. A memory.

"Fuck! Charlie!" Alice exclaimed as other patrons watched her. She blushed in embarrassment and muttered some apology before drowning the coffee in one go and running out. Alice admonished herself. How could she forget Charlie? Sure, there were things with being in a new body, relocating, and fighting, but they weren't good reasons. Unlike Danny, Charlie was really a good and supportive family member, even if Alice won't understand what she said anyway. That thought brought a halt to her previous, self-loathing thoughts chain, now that she was Dream and gained these awesome powers, could she talk to animals? Alice shook her head, unimportant thoughts for later, Charlie first.

Alice walked briskly into the oh-so-familiar street in her midnight blue cloak. The entire street gave off a feeling of depression, by some miracles and due to being unprofitable, local gangs had seen fit to leave this place alone. Small mercies. She slowed down considerably and shuffled her hands uncomfortably as she stood in front of Taylor's old house. Alice steeled herself and walked near. She created a disc with a runic array for inspection and put some energy into it. Runes lit up in metaphorical light. Alice blinked as she felt the information of everything in 100 m diameter installed inside her mind. She found her target and walked in that direction.

There she was, a magnificent-looking tabby cat, worryingly close to dying. Alice ran over as soon as she saw the state the cat was in. She lifted the grey tabby cat with mackerel patterns over its body gingerly. Not that it did any good, Charlie was already dying. She knew a few runic arrays on top of her head that would help her. However, that would be unsatisfying. She needed more permanent means to help Charlie. So, Alice decided. She reached deep inside herself and yoinked away what she wanted. Alice looked at the mangled concept of Chaos in her hand for a bit before imbuing the cat with it. Cat shouted in what was presumed to be in pain before promptly exploding. Its blood and flesh flowed in an ever-shifting pattern. From flesh and blood, they became flowing sand, sometimes water, sometimes distant starlights, and sometimes things that really don't exist, and finally, Charlie.

"It's me, Cha," Alice smiled and said. She knew the cat would know it was her. With a soft sound of mewling, it immediately jumped up into her chest at supersonic speed.

Wincing in pain, Alice thought, 'there goes my chest'. She would have to rebuild it later, again.

Outwardly, she said, "slow down buddy, I know you're excited to see me but now is not the place to have a reunion". Alice hugged the cat, which grew a tiny bit and dropped it on the ground. She wondered if Charlie would let her dye her hair purple.

Alice brought both of them into the Dreamland. The sky of the Dreamland was pleasantly purple today, a sharp contrast to yesterday's spilling blood sky. Alice supposed that just might be the Earth Bet thing. All the fears and despairs of billions of people impacting the Dreamland. Not to mention the occasionally bloody sky, there were many nightmares just roaming around and assaulting the Dreamers. Not to mention this place was in ruin before she came. She did her best to repair this place, but there were just so many problems, and Dreamland of Earth Bet was like the premium Nightmare spawn point. There were even versions of Endbringers roaming around. Thankfully, they couldn't go to the Waking World without help. Denizens of the Dreamland tend to obey her unquestionably, but that's that. It was in their instinct to hurt and destroy, she had no need for such things, so she had to destroy them. After two days of sorting things, though, she got fed up and put a laughing sun (think of sun from Soul Eater) up there, which blasted unruly Nightmares with plasma beams.

"Meow," Charlie cutely meowed and rubbed her body on her leg. Alice smiled and patted her head.

"Look, Cha. This is your new home," Alice said as she waved her hands dramatically toward Dreamland in front of them. Granted, there was only endless sand in front of them. Alice had reset the previous structure due to it being so depressing, and hadn't gotten herself around to rebuilding it yet. However, she could already see some structures partially rising once again, but they were still quite ugly all the same. It couldn't really be helped. People had lost hope and were wallowing in despair, and it showed.

The cat crinkled its nose and looked back at Alice. Clearly, she wasn't impressed. Alice scratched her cheek in embarrassment and with a thought, a forest rose up from the sand.

Charlie meowed in approval at the sight in front of it and went into the forest. Alice followed her. There wasn't much inside the forest, evergreen trees of unidentifiable species and fruit trees which bear neon pink colour fruits. Whoever ate them would have to endure being shrunk to the size of a rodent, however, this side effect was offset by how delicious the fruit was. It tasted like ice cream of every flavour, and somehow it worked.

The real gift was inside the centre of the forest, carefully hidden from sight. It was a lake, filled with many kinds of lotuses and arranged carefully so that everyone who saw this would feel a pleasant emotion. Furthermore, this place was enchanted so that those who entered it would be able to feel freedom from their mental shackles, even if it would be for a moment. Alice smiled, she considered making this place more permanent.