Innerworks

72. Enter the onset hurst

The Dream Keeper was on his knees in front of her. His head is bowed and face hidden behind the shadow of his sweat matted hair. He's panting heavily and his very aura was shaking.
 
How weak.
 
For fun She taunts him...and then throws a wave of shadow his way.
 
To the Dream Keeper's credit, he did manage to dodge majority of the attacks, but She was getting tired of the game. Her patience had run thin and he was no longer a fun little play thing. 
 
Every attack of hers that landed on him sent his precious Sand scattering.
 
What a mess.
 
She batted at him with more Shadow, his body went careening to the left. Landing hard upon the solid not-ground that the subconscious allowed them to stand upon. 
 
"A youth like you has no chance of winning. Give up now Dream Keeper and I shall make your demise a quick one."
 
He coughs, spitting blood from his mouth. 
"Hah!" He grins as he shakily gets to his knees, lips stained a sticky red, "not on your life!"

She tsked.
She would have granted him mercy simply because he was young; then again, the youth always had such debilitating hubris

"Not on my life maybe, but it will definitely be on yours!" Growling, she raised a wall of Shadow, preparing for a final devastating blow. "Goodbye Dream Keeper-!"
 
She sent the attack forward only to flinch back. For the first time during the onslaught, she completely saw his face. Eyes completely Gold, sockets illuminating and spilling. The skin around his eyes were splinters black like cracked ceramic. The most shocking part of it all, he wore a smirk on his face.
 
The Shadow wall she had attacked him with dissipated with the flick of his wrist, Sand destroying it with precise but brutal motion.
 
He then stood up.Gold gaze unwavering.
 "I told you", he spits, "not on your life"
 
In one 'come hither' motion, she suddenly realized his plan… though a second too late.
 
The Sand that had been scattered about, during each of her attacks, suddenly rose up and charged. Ready to defend it's Master from his enemy- her.
 
In less than a blink she found herself skewered by several large spikes of Sand. 
 
As if to add insult to injury, the Dream Keep raised his hand again, copying her move; a wall of Sand.
 
The blow was devastating, enough so that it rented her form to pieces  no thicker than the Sand itself.  She was nothing short of shredded apart in every sense of the word.

Well, if that was her true form that is.
Fortunately it was only a projection of her being, an avatar, a puppet if you will. Her actual form had remained seated upon her throne, outside of the vortex of nothing that was the subconscious.
 
Her projection had remained in the subconscious to drain it further, not that she had the need anymore; her little pet's machine provided quite a bit of sustenance.
 
Still, she obviously could not ignore what had just occurred. The Dream Keeper... that power, so raw and unrefined. It was no doubt of the Subconscious itself. The very same as their surroundings but completely different all the same. 
 
She sensed it now, how foolish she had been; her own hubris had caused her obliviousness. His age, the manipulation of the Sentient Subconscious, the spec of her essence within him.
 
The Dream Keeper was her Son.
 
She cackled, letting her voice echo through to where her projection had once been.
The poor Dream Keeper's face of stunned horror will be etched into her very Core for eternity and how wonderful it was to look at.

She laughed as she explained to the youth just who exactly he was.
 
At first he had vehemently denied it...but then again, there was no other logical explanation. 
 
The Core she had rended from that, particularly pesky, Emotion and thrown into the depth of the subconscious had somehow evolved and became strong enough to leave her hold on it. 

Her estranged son lived, how quaint-
 
The Dream Keeper suddenly collapsed, of exhaustion no doubt. His Sand immediately started swarming around him in a concerned buzz.
 
She huffed.
He was still a tad too weak for her liking but that was nothing training couldn't fix, there was definitely potential.
 
Using a bit more of her power, she encased the prone Dream Keeper in her Shadow, almost as if she were hugging him under her bosom. Then she wiped his memories. Just the bits and pieces that were recent. Just enough so that he would truly be hers when he awoke.
 
The Sand hissed, forming a tornado fueled by its pure aggression. It had pulled him away from the Shadows and out of the sub-nothingness, but a good amount of damage had already been done. Now all she had to do was wait.