The Dreamer meets the Mighty Normie

As they neared the compound, Zini recounted hearing a young girl's voice in her head pleading for help. She at first thought it was Star playing tricks on her just for the fun of it. Star did that every now and then just to mess with Zini. This voice was very monotonous and after a time, the latter antagonistic game ceased. Zini knew how ignore Star's impersonations of trying to annoy her.

"You're someone different." the voice suddenly said. "Together we can turn the tide of this war."

At that moment Zini knew it wasn't Star just impersonating a random child. Not once did Star have such an elevated view of her. To Star, Zini was a weakling.

"Who are you?" Zini asked.

"I've been trying to get someone to free me from this icy prison, but they all keep dying," the voice sadly stated. She added with a warning, "The Beast keeps slaying everyone who steps into this lab."

That name was a myth yet circulated inside the conspiratorial communities as a boogieman of some sort. Mrs. Lawrence believed the Beast was one of the many super soldier experiments the King had his scientists create against the rebels in Caprice.

"He was the first before the Nightmare, AKA: Queen Crystal." the girl informed. 

"What is he exactly?" Zini continued.

"He's the guardian of these parts," the girl explained. "Making sure no one can free me."

"Why endanger us then?"

Zini had second thoughts. She thought about the wellbeing of her friends and fellow soldiers. Even though she was a princess, she considered herself a soldier at times. After all, had her father not tried to kill her in that gauntlet, Zini would've been a part of the Anomaly Armed Forces.

Now, she considered herself as a soldier-for-hire.

"What soldier would run away from saving a life?" Star appealed to Zini's goodwill but doubted she would act on it. The girl knew Star didn't care about her mission to help others but recognized it was important to her. Over the years Star learned that Zini's shyness sometimes got in the way of her moving forward. Star perceived Zini backing down on certain issues as cowardice. Even though it was Star's power alone was what made Zini, if needed, Star would let her use it to defend herself and her friends.

"You are someone different." the girl repeated. "Could I consider you family?"

"How could you?" Zini asked, a bit wary of the girl's naiveté.

"They used my DNA to create something like me," the girl explained. "All because I wouldn't help Don exterminate the humans who killed his version of me. I will tell you more once you free me."

"Just beware of the Beast." the girl warned again.

Zini wondered if the others knew. She looked around at the others. At the compound, the building was a lone structure surrounded by barbed wire. The battalion stayed outside to secure the perimeter while the three ladies went inside. They went a few miles down several flights of stairs. Initially, each level was pitched black. When the ladies stepped inside, dim security lights outlined each staircase. The lights exposed the macabre scene on each level. That's when Zini told them what the girl told her telepathically.

Mackie wasn't fazed. She'd encountered wild animals before, but Kita was slightly on edge. If the Anomaly scientists created a monster to keep anyone from trying to free the Dreamer, they had to exercise extreme caution.

At the bottom level, the macabre display reached its most gruesome point. In a large dimly lit area, the words "STOP" were written in bloody big bold letters on the wall near the lab's entrance. The door was located on the other side of the staircase. Between them were piles of dead bodies spread out. They made their way to the door, trying their best to not trip over the dead.

Suddenly, Kita tripped over a dead body and landed on another. She let out a short scream at seeing the badly clawed to death cadaver. He died with his eyes open. Those death filled eyes of that deceased soldier spooked Kita. She quickly covered her mouth with her hand to suppress her scream.

"MEAL." 

Zini heard telepathic chatter of the monster. 

"Who are you?" Zini called out to it.

"DEATH." the Beast responded coldly.

The air became still in the room. Kita crawled toward Mackie, lagging from the stairs after tripping over more dead bodies.

"SCREAMER FIRST!" the Beast thought his plan out.

From the corner of Mackie's eye, two red eyes opened from the deep dark area on the other side of the dark room beneath the staircase.

A wolf's growl was heard, followed by a hyena's laugh. Before Mackie could warn her, the Beast lunged at Kita. His victory was sure as the unsuspecting girl turned around to faced her doom.

Kita only saw claws and wolf jaws coming at her. She screamed loudly and expected to die. Yet the Beast froze in mid-air, inches away from his meal. Kita got a good look of the purple-skinned wolf-fox hybrid with brown fur glistening in the dimly lit room. He had shredded pants on. His 9 foxtails wagged behind him as he tried to struggle out of whatever was keeping him frozen.

"MOVE NOW!" Star yelled from a distance. Kita, unfortunately, just stood there scared stiff. The Beast's jaws drooled over her as Star kept him frozen in place telekinetically. Kita glanced behind her to see Zini's outstretched hand exposed by the dim lighting. She quickly squirmed away from the monster and rejoined the others.

"YOU DARE?!" the Beast barked as he started to squirm out of Star's telekinetic hold.

"You may be the Beast but I'm the Dragon." Star boasted.

"YOU'RE JUST ANOTHTER MEAL TO ME!" the Beast roared loudly. "I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

"Get through me first!" Star closed her fist aimed the Beast and quickly shot it open again, sending her opponent slamming into the wall behind him. As he hit the ground, blood streaked from where he hit the concrete.

Star quickly glanced back at Mackie and Kita behind her with an angered look. Her eyes were glowing a whitish blue color. The two retreated to inside the lab before Star squared off with the monster.

Recovering from his daze, the Beast lunged Star but went right through her image. The girl used the IE as a distraction. At the corner of his eye, he saw a ball of energy light up the room. It was Star. He dashed at her only for her to sidestep his pounce and blast him in the side, leaving a gaping hole. She created another ball of energy to light up the room even more, watching her opponent.

"He's dead." Zini believed but Star wouldn't let her regain control. Star felled the Beast temporarily and he was only playing dead to trick her into coming closer. She could still feel the Beast's murderous feelings and thus kept her distance. Though she couldn't read his mind, she still knew what he felt.

The Beast quickly opened one eye as the gaping hole started to shrink.

"So, you have healing like me." Star found it interesting that the Anomaly scientists could create such a monstrosity. Then again, they created her mother. Zini quickly remembered that the Beast was missing what her mother had. If he was anything like her, he too would show a similar power set but didn't.

"That girl said the Beast was created first before the Nightmare." Zini said. "The implications of that are quite disturbing." Star shuttered.

As Star stood there distracted, the Beast took a swipe up and sideways her, knocking the girl backward into a dead body. Blood gushed from her arm. The ball of lights dissipated as the Beast's attack broke her concentration. The room was back to being dimly lit from the security lights. She backed away from the Beast, tightly gripping the wound with her free hand. 

"THIS BLOOD IS FAMILIAR!" the Beast yelled in confusion. It sniffed the puddle of Zini's blood between them. He looked up at the girl holding her arm. She let go of it. The wound started to heal.

"YOU CAN'T BE LIKE ME!" the Beast stirred in his confusion. "CAN YOU?"

"You can take that mystery to your grave!" Star yelled angrily. She quickly glanced around the room then fixated her eyes on the Beast again. She created several balls of energy around her to completely illuminate the room. Suddenly, dozens of knives rattled loose from the fallen soldiers. When the Beast turned toward her, a wall of knives came at him.

"I'LL STILL LIVE!" the Beast arrogantly predicted.

"But in chains!" Star joked menacingly before sending the knives into him. The girl sent her captured opponent into the wall behind him and drove every knife further into the Beast. Blood spilled from his entrance wounds as the knives dug their way into his flesh. They then finally found their way deep into the concrete behind him. The Beast struggled to get free but couldn't. All his limbs were pinned to the concrete wall. His tails flailed frantically in every attempt to free himself. He let out a menacing snarl mixed with howls of pain as Star walked away victorious. She rejoined Mackie and Kita who watched parts of the battle periodically from the door's window. They knew their friend would beat the Beast again if he ever got free.

"But he still lives." Mackie's concern of Star leaving the Beast pinned to the wall was a mistake.

Kita believed the Beast would wrestle himself free and come after them. She was confident that they'd free the Dreamer before then. Star, however, knew the Beast's feelings changed toward her. Reverting to Zini, she scanned the Beast's mind. The will to fight wasn't in him anymore. He accepted his defeat in prison.

"He's planning something." Star deducted. "He knows he's not unique contrary to what he was told. Our existence intrigues him."

Inside the lab, there wasn't a dead body in sight. So they thought. They reached a room with the body of a soldier at the entrance. He didn't have claw marks on him but his body was riddled with bullets. A trail of blood, presumably from his wounds, were traced from the lab entrance and continued into another room. Inside this room were several vertical pods. In front of one was a broken pod. A few feet in front of it was a dead scientist with claw marks on his neck. Kita quickly looked away at the guy. He died with his eyes open. That's when the three girls saw it. In the middle of the room, surrounded by dead soldiers, was pod containing a girl no older than 16. One of the dead soldiers had their hand on the controls.

Mackie and Kita quickly got to work on opening the pod. The pod didn't have enough power to activate. It needed an extra push. Mackie searched the room and found the circuit breaker in a small enclosure.

"We're all family." the girl spoke to Zini in her mind.

Zini stepped away from the pod. She closed her eyes and covered her mouth. The very thought of this idea was both frightening and sad.

"How can you say that?" Zini was a bit skeptic. 

"The blood of us four is shared." the girl said.

"The Dreamer, The Nightmare, The Beast, and the Stardust Girl," the girl continued. "The Anomaly tried to replicate a being like me. They made the ultimate hunter with the Beast and a super soldier with your mother. Yet you hold power over all of them."

Zini at first didn't want to believe this coming from a stranger. Yet Star knew what the Dreamer said was true. Clones or not, they were all related by blood.

"So that would make me your daughter?" Zini asked.

"The Nightmare and the Beast are my younger siblings." the Dreamer hesitantly replied.

The thought of meeting a family member who wasn't out to get her was comforting but Zini still had her doubts. She only saved the Dreamer because she was in need.

"You have a great journey ahead of you-embrace it!" the Dreamer could read her mind like an open book. She knew were Zini came from. The hardships she suffered.

"This Don is not like the Don I knew." the Dreamer's tone dropped into sadness.

Zini couldn't imagine her father being more than a tyrannical deadbeat monster she owed her existence. Yet the Dreamer said he wasn't like that.

"I have so many questions." Zini wanted to carry on this private conversation telepathically but before the Dreamer could go further about her origins, Mackie cut the power on from the circuit breaker, sending enough electricity to the pod for Kita to open. The rest of the compound also lit up brightly. The pod opened with a hiss. Kita backed away from it as the icy mist rushed out. The front lid of the pod raised up and the Dreamer awakened.

"Finally!" the Dreamer said. "Thank you all for rescuing me."

Zini stood at a distance. When the Dreamer and her locked eyes, Zini slowly walked toward her. Her fear of this little girl was evident.

"Don't be afraid, Zini." the Dreamer assured her.

The Dreamer couldn't remember her personal name but believed that it would return in due time. She believed her memory loss was because of cryro-sleep. As time went by, she remembered part of her name.

"I was once called Lina." she said.

She told them that she'd been locked up for what seemed like centuries. In the early part of her imprisonment, they sedated her, inhibiting the lady's telepathic abilities.

"Though they knew how to disable a Telepath with their technology, I'm a lot older than I look." Lina mentioned. What the three ladies saw of her in the cryro-pod was a child. Lina further explained she's been alive for over a millennium but mostly in cryro-sleep. Even before her imprisonment, her stamina and reflexes were that of a middle-aged person. These were the ultimate factors that led to her demise.

Lina also lacked battle training and was no match for a seasoned veteran. Hence, this led to her capture by the Anomaly soldiers. How she got to this place in time was by accident. Lina tried to return home to Earth after feeling homesick and found herself in a strange world where everything was different. From her surroundings, it seemed she had time jumped a few decades into the future. The main difference between her world and this was that the Anomaly, Nexus, and the Dragorans were all friends. Also, her Don was a caring older brother. It was blatantly obvious that this Don was big brother in a tyrannical way. Her naive nature led to her capture.

"He betrayed me as his sister and you, Zini, as a father." Lina noted sadly.

"Why did he act like that?" Zini wanted to know how her old man turned into the callous sack of garbage she knew all her life.

"Contrary to what Caprice may have said about us in their history books, his version me died because of Dark Matter Poisoning." Lina answered.

Mackie and Kita recalled the many stories about their Lina from their mother. How she first saved them from certain doom, escaping to this strange world from an intergalactic prison. She fell sick while exploring their new world with Don. Don believed it was from all the experiments did on her while they were in captivity.

"We both were a special case." Lina noted. "But This Don shared something even more special with her."

Zini knew what Lina implied. Star scoffed at it, knowing that the Nightmare wasn't the Don's first love.

Lina continued with her story, remembering that when the Anomaly first saw her, they thought she was a fake and the patrol that found her attacked first. Though most of them were killed in the fight, they found a way to outsmart her using their military tactics and training.

Don believed this Lina was his but back from the dead. He quickly found this to not be true as key memories this Lina didn't have of his version of her. Don and those with him quickly learned that this Lina was from a different timeline. He further tested this Lina, believing she would see that the humans needed to be exterminated for causing the death of his loved one. Lina wouldn't help him and believed his love wouldn't either. At hearing her reasoning, he snapped and had her put in prison. His scientists subjected her to their cruel experiments. These would be like the ones his Lina underwent while they were in prison together.

Deep down inside, Lina knew that Don had an ulterior motive. He knew how his maker, some evil scientist named Dr. Lunningham, genetically engineered the Anomaly Race. The Nexus and the Xyrui were modified humans enhanced by a needle. The Dragorans were cousins to the Xyrui and another race called the Ri'an. Technically, both the Dragorans and the Ri'an were Xyrui. What made them different were their separate heritages and cultures. All of them possessed unique traits but shared the vitals of a human at peak performance levels with a dash of Dark Matter.

The Anomaly were a special case as they were beings infused with a more of the Dark Matter substance. Where Dr. Lunningham came from, a place called Earth, Dark Matter was widely known as the "Glue of the Universe". The "mad doctor", as what many called him, knew how to find, gather, synthesize, and use it. Don was the first of his kind to survive past the young teenage years. Others before him died a sick, painful death before the age of 12. Dark Matter is toxic to most biological life forms but those who survive undergo pigmentation changes-hence their purple skin. Children of the Anomaly, however, are immune to its toxicity thanks to Dr. Lunningham's success with Don. The Dark Matter in the system of this reality's Lina took a few years before adversely affecting her. The substance ate away at her vital organs like a cancer and eventually killed her. Due to the flesh-eating nature of Dark Matter, the substance dissolved her body, leaving nothing to bury. The same substance inside the alternate Lina they captured, behaved differently by enhancing her abilities exponentially. A few of those abilities included immortality and advanced regeneration.

The Anomaly soldiers heavily sedated Lina before they sent her to the lab. This was after seeing it was a solution to stopping her many escapes. Lina mind controlled many soldiers around her to get free. Don, however, had a strong mind and couldn't be controlled. Not many Anomalies had a mind like his.

Once out of commission, Don's scientists took samples of her DNA. Lina knew they were creating monsters with it. The Beast was the first. Before he was commissioned to guard this facility, he went on a killing spree within human, Nexus, and Dragoran controlled areas. He was unstoppable. Yet the flaw that irritated Don the most about him was his one-track mind and lack of abilities mirroring his Lina. Don's scientists tried one more time and got the Nightmare. She was everything he wanted and fell in love with her. Before long, she became his Queen of Caprice.

Lina received no visitors for a while because everyone feared the monster protecting this facility. Don knew his enemies would be looking to free this Lina. He sent the Beast to prevent them from doing so as its guardian. From all the dead bodies found throughout this place, it was obvious that both the Nexus and Dragorans knew how to get here but rescuing the Dreamer was a mission impossible.

Suddenly, Beast's howling interrupted their conversation. 

"You should've killed him." Mackie scolded Zini.

"His regeneration is just as fast as mine." Zini reasoned. Lina wasn't afraid of the Beast.

"You did good against him," Lina commended Zini. "Now it's my turn!"

Lina jumped down from the pod but instantly fell toward the ground. Atrophy in her legs disabled her leg movements but before she hit the ground, Zini caught her telekinetically.

The Beast entered the room.

"SISTER WILL NOT LEAVE WITH YOU!" The Beast yelled.

Zini flinched at hearing him call her that. She took a quick look at the Beast and saw the half healed knife wound scars in him. He must've ripped himself loose from them.

"Took him long enough!" Star thought.

The Beast charged but was stopped the moment Lina locked eyes with him. Her eyes started to glow white. A thin film of energy encased the Beast. It started to flicker. In blinding flash of light, an older lady who looked no more than 45, stood a few feet away from them. The Beast was nowhere to be found. Lina fell to the ground, seemingly drained from the apparent display of power.

"Lina!" Zini called out to her, running to her side. Lina rose to her feet with Zini's help.

"I couldn't concentrate on keeping my youthful appearance and fighting the Beast successfully." Lina explained. "But I'm fine now."

"What did she do to him?" Star wondered.

"He's somewhere nobody will be able to find him but me." Lina told her telepathically. That very thought sent chills down Zini's spine. Lina assured her that this power was only reserved for her most powerful enemies-clones included.

Lina thanked them again for rescuing her and bid them farewell. Lina prepared to attempt going back to her time, believing she could focus on the details of her original timeline and travel back to it. Unfortunately for her, she only succeeded in teleporting several times throughout the room and the facility. She let out a cry of agony, realizing she was stuck here forever. The lady cried while sitting on the ground with her face in her hands. Zini came neared her. The other two ladies followed. They sat there on the ground comforting a bereaved lady who felt lost, separated from her own world.

Alerts around the lab went off. There was a slight panic because the women didn't know what it meant. Perhaps their troops outside triggered the alarm?

"Missile inbound!" Mackie heard the Nexus guard chatter over her radio. "There isn't time!" Kita panicked, believing they were all doomed.

"Yes, there is." Lina said calmly.

In an instant, all of them vanished from the lab in a flash of light. They found themselves a few miles away from the lab. They all watch as a missile hit the compound, leaving it a crater wide. The missile obliterated the entire facility. The explosion also killed all the Nexus soldiers around it. Lina collapsed shortly after teleporting her and the others to safety. Kita thought about scolding Lina on not getting her men to safety too until she saw how the initial teleportation heavily drained her. Taking this into consideration, she relinquished that thought. With the ruins of the facility to their backs, the ladies walked towards Destiny.

When Mackie's radio was in range of their troop's com channels, she kept getting an SOS. The ladies quickened to pace until they reached Destiny. Upon reaching it, to their horror, the entire city was in flames.