//------------------------------// // Issue 5: The Nightmare // Story: DC Comics: Chaos Comics // by Mega NewWays97 //------------------------------// Discord stood within the the hospital lobby his arms crossed as the doctor before him just looked at him like he was serious, “Let me recap, you're telling me that they aren’t suffering some disease or strange disorder but something is feeding off the dreams and has trapped them in their sleep.” Discord rolled his eyes. A few days ago people started not waking up and seemed to be trapped within nightmares. The Doctors here buffered by this phenomena but Discord felt like he saw this before and came offering his help. When he explained what was going on it seemed that the Doctors couldn't wrap their heads around it and after a light reading of their minds he was starting to get a bit irritated. Soon after his interview which he explained his powers where magical based their was many articles, blogs, and the like trying to “debunk” his claims. Discord was insulted about this. Insulted and offended. He was insulted that that people couldn’t expect his abilities had no scientific connection and berating him for fantasies, this also offended him as he was literally materialized magic and as such it somehow felt racist to him and all those who still used magic. Pushing aside both his anger and the little voice in his head telling him to show the Doctor the “truth” he spoke his voice calm as he answered him, “Yes that is what happening.” The Doctor started to laugh at this as Discord could read he thought he was joking. Discord clutched his fists his power slowly arching around them as his anger rose at the Doctor’s laughter. The Doctor’s stopped as he saw Discord standing their purple electricity in his hands as his cape seemed to float upward while his facial expression was of pure rage. “Ahh… you're serious…” The Doctor didn’t say much more as Discord pushed back down his anger one more time leaving a look of annoyance on his face. “Yes I’m serious, now seeing how you waste so much of both of our time I’m going to do my… well the closest thing I have to a job and save those people from the dream eating monster that you’re so blind you can’t see.” Discord walked right past him not even bothering anymore to keep eye contact as he spoke. “Wait, you can’t just go in there!” The Doctor protest causing Discord to sigh at this. Turned back to the Doctor Discord spoke to him in a calm, and friendly tone, “Look you're a Doctor and it’s your job to care about their well being, but let’s be honest,” Discord’s look became serious as he focused his eyes on the Doctor’s, “You have no idea what you are doing as this is out of the realm of your skills at best they will wake up permanently scarred for life as the dream eater tortures them until they become a shell of themselves, at worse they die from the stress while the entity uses the powers of their dreams to grow stronger and do this over again and again with you and other’s like you unable to do anything for who knows how long, weeks, months, years, centuries.” Discord looked away from the Doctor before finishing his speech, “Now I’m going to go stop the dream eating entity and wake them up, you can try and stop me if you want, you will fail and doom them but you can try if you want.” Sombra looked at the bullet his gunsmith had made in his hands. It looked like a normal 9mm round but I closer look would show a small bit of the crystal embedded at the tip and along the sides. “That is one thing down.” Sombra looked over fortage on his computer of his warehouse. He stopped it as he saw Batman over the image just before he tossed a batange at it which killed the feed. “The bat is becoming an annoyance.” Sombra simply stated as he looked at his henchmen who looked like he stated the obvious. The Umbrum possessed mob boss stood up and started to walk out of the room, “I’m going to go get someone to help us divert attention away from our little bat problem.” That caught their attention at hearing those words, “Who exactly are you talking about? One of those crazies from Arkham?” Sombra turned to him at hearing those words. “Good suggestion one that I admit would be a easy one to come to but no I’m looking for help from someone else.” Sombra answered. “Who then one of the other crime bosses?” Sombra wanted to laugh at this. If the other bosses could unite against the bat they would have done so already. The truth is they were either too greedy, had enough bad blood between them, or just uncaring to ever do so. “The day that happens is the day America become a monarchy, no who I have in mind boys are thought of as a myth,” Sombra walked out of the room confusing the boys while he thought to himself about the nature of myths, “No matter what people want to say about myths, there is truth to them after all.” Discord sait in a meditative position within the room while the patient lay in their beds thrashing around from the nightmares while outside the room the doctor from before looked on watching. Next time him one of his collages just looked at him dumbfounded at the fact, “So you just let him into the ward to work is quote unquote magic?” She asked causing the doctor to just sigh. “Well what was I supposed to do actually? Fight him?” He questioned before returning to superhero in the room as he sait still. Unknown to them Discord’s mind had left his body and was floating into the dream world before passing into the dream. What Discord came to was a twisted and strange landscape which mixed the city with country land both right inside each other two suns, four moons, floating eyeballs instead of clouds, demon cows standing everywhere and a bunch of clowns playing limbo. Eh, not nearly as nightmarish as Dido, but still far more creative then Quesada,” Discord commented before pausing at this, “Wait how do I know that?” Discord was about to ponder why he felt like saying that when he saw a long whip of energy with what appeared to be a night like sky past him by him before glaring at him before taking off in a hurry. “Well that answers that question on what doing this.” Discord flew off after it taking time to use the fact it was a dream to grow a second head and look down seeing a few of the dreamers captured in their own nightmares watching as trails of energy came from them and into the centre of the dreamscape. “That’s not good…” Contrary to popular belief dreams did have power and influence in the real world. Harvesting this power tend to inflict pain on the victim and strength the predator. However this was almost industrial and if he didn’t stop it soon they might end up scared or outright insane from it. Landing on the roof of the huge building in the centre he found the entity draining up the energy glowing bigger as it did so, “Ok I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the dream energy.” The thing screeched at him before two tendrils shot out at Discord morphing into swordlike ends and went right for his head. Discord jumped out of the way at the last moment as more and more tendrils shot out each aimed for him as Discord raced ducked, and slid away from each of them until one caught him in the side of his waist, his back thigh and a bit over his check causing him to fly back out of range. His wound quickly healed themselves as he looked at the building. Directly attacking the dream eater wasn’t going to cut it meaning he had to try a different approach, “I’ll just destroy the building them seeing how it’s the focal point it should snap them all awake.” Discord gathered his magic blasting and just before it could be hit the entity blocked it with a shield made from itself before firing its own attacks at him. Discord hastily flew behind the buildings using them to stop the blasts. Seeing this the creature shot a bolt of lighting into the sky darken it as lighting started to rain down on Discord’s location. “Ok now that’s just cheati… ahhh!” He screamed as the lighting hit him knocking him to the ground. “Hey Discord why can’t you use the fact it’s a dream to defeat him with your imagination?” A voice which strangely sounded like an entitled fan of some kind. “Well first, this isn’t my dream so I have only a limited control over it. Second, I’m a astral projection of my mind and I’m limited by what magic I brought with me. third, shut up Billy!” With that the voice in his head was gone allowing him to stand up only to get his arms waist and neck wrapped up in the creature's tendrils pulling him back to it. Discord struggled against it’s grip for a moment as it formed a maw full of teeth roaring at him, “So Tantabus is your name?” Discord asked unsure if he heard that right. It growled again at him, “Yeah no I’m not being your…” Discord’s eyes started glow as the dream eating monsters opened its maw intending to eat him. Discord aimed his eyes down and blasted the energy coming from the base to the Tantabus. For a split second the feedback broke the control over the dreamers and that was all they needed as they all immediately awoke with a fright in the hospital with Everfree meditating in the room. The dream started to shake and crumble as the Tantabus realized what had happened. Without the dreamers the dream was breaking down returning to the flow of the dreaming. Enraged at this it tossed Discord down into the ground hard ready to eat him, “Yeah sorry I’m not on the menu,” With a flash he recalled his astral projection leaving the Tantabus in the crumbling realm. A tendial of itself shot out forming a knife and cut into the fabric of it’s realm before slipped though it’s tear right as everything came down. Discord walked out of the hospital a little while later with a cup of water in his hand taking a drink. “I still find it weird I’m always thirsting after Astral Projecting myself…” He stopped by a newspaper bend still wondering who would still read these things. After all they were are still are a dying medium who would be gone in about five to ten years so why bother. Pulling out his phone he got to work updating his status with what he had just done before checking out what was going on. Their was another riot between two groups of people who’s views Discord realized where basically just the same with different rhetoric and symbols at this point. Diana Prince, the Ambassador from Themyscira had debuted herself as a superheroine named Wonder Woman, “Well she’s number six then… wait what’s this…” He continued to read as she explained her origins and her powers and boy did the comments not like it, “Eh, who really cares about that I mean I’m pretty sure they are both right.” He put away his phone wondering to himself if he should visit her or go see the flash. “I know I’ll leave it to a coin tossed.” Picking up a discarded penny he flipped it in the air grabbed it and opening his hand he teleport away. Sector 2813 Location: Rao Star System Floating around the Red Star of Rao where the remains of Krypton. Most of the remains had fallen into the star while the rest just sat their in orbit with nothing but a faint glow of a strange radioactive material. The system was soon joined as a hyperspace gate opened before a skull shaped ship entered the systems. A holographic screen appeared showing Brainiac the remains of the once mighty planet, “Krypton once the capital of a mighty empire, oh how you have fallen.” Remaining about days long ago as Brainiac memory banks recalled his birth, coded into existence on this very world with the propose to defend the Empire. Adaptive, evolving, it was little surprise he would become sentient and soon grow beyond that programming into other things. He had wondered during those millennia the spent on the home world after the empire ended did they ever wonder if maybe it was he caused the whole mess in the first place? “At least the souls of the dead can rest assured that at least their Legacy still lives.” He raised his arms for a moment coming back to this system had bought a feeling of sentiment to him. Perhaps that was why he came back to take the city Kandor just before the planet exploded adding it to his collection of things from his conquered worlds. The computer finished its scan locating a rock with high amount of the material he was looking for, “Excellent.”