Once Upon A Dream

Second Encounter

The next time we met, my impression of Bakugou had solidified, though the encounter had been brief. It wasn't often that I had reoccurring dream encounters, often entertaining the company of strangers most nights. It was a rare thing for my brainwaves to be in-sync with someone else's more than once without actively willing it. However, the instant that I recognized his dream signature towards the end of my "shift," my curiosity won out in the end and I established one last connection for the night.

Normally, I would have just viewed the dream from the edge of the portals I could access, but the dream's concept intrigued me with its creative spirit that I had to take part. The dream I entered was based in a fantasy type world filled with monsters and heroic quests you would usually find in a JRPG. The protagonist Bakugou was riding on top of a red, European-styled dragon that was about the size of a house and setting fire to the countryside while party members of his aided him from below, fighting off monster foot-soldiers. I vaguely recognized some of the faces of his party members from our previous encounter but had no real names to put to them, aside from the green haired boy called Deku; he was dressed in peasant garbs and was currently being chased by some low-level orcs.

Slipping into a disguise to keep the illusion going, I changed my attire into a simple tunic with bangles and gemstone necklaces that resembled some sort of warrior mage or oracle. Any design more complex would have left me exhausted, and my hair was already almost completely black, save for a few streaks of silver hair. Meanwhile, Bakugou- having jumped forward in time since dreams didn't have to abide by real-time events -had already defeated all of the monsters and now sat on top of a mountainous hoard of gold and expensive jewels, something that had been awarded to him for saving the village from the fiendish hoards. A treasure trove fit for a king. Said king was currently using a dismal Deku as a footstool as gleeful, borderline demonic laughter belted out from the dragon master towards the the village. Casually floating to one side but just out of his peripheral vision, I floated towards where I could observe the manic blonde in closer proximity. His face had some mania to it but no cruelty as he bellowed. Well, someone certainly seems to be in better spirits than our last encounter, I thought, admiring the passion and unbridled honesty in his laughter.

"Hey there, Sparky. Glad to see you're doing okay," I voiced my thoughts softly with full knowledge that he was unable to sense my presence. It hadn't been my intention to alert him to my occupancy of his dream. Most times, my interference was anonymous, my role to give comfort by snapping them out of whatever intense emotion they were feeling without actually being seen, like accidentally brushing past someone in a crowd when lost in thought. But this Bakugou guy- he could see me, without any provocation. Either I had grown weaker or he must have been more lucid than I thought, because the next thing I knew, his attention was directly focused on me. What was more interesting was that he had greeted me with eyes shining with vague familiarity and suspicion. He had remembered me... or at the very least, he thought he did.

"And just who the hell are you? Are you from the village or-" his hand went to the pommel of his Indian talwar in preparation to draw, his expression going from stoic to suddenly eager, "-have you come to challenge me?"

In such a close proximity, I couldn't help but ogle his openly displayed pectorals and muscular abdomen as he wore nothing else but a fur-lined cape and arm bands. Other than some knee pads and a fine pair of leather combat boots, he had no armor. In other words, the dude was cut and confident that no one would put a scratch on him, and he knew it. Tactfully, I put on a bright, confident smile and bowed dramatically with my arms wide, like I had completed some grand performance, "Don't you know? I'm the girl of your dreams."

The dragon master clicked his tongue, his sneer narrowed and arrogant. "Tch yeah right. The girl of my dreams wouldn't be so scrawny or pathetic looking."

Ouch. I felt my confidence deflate a little at that particular jab of my gaunt countenance, a side effect from overusing my Quirk, but I tried not to take his comment to heart and gave him a coy passing glance. "Maybe you don't know yourself as well as you think. Appearances can be deceiving."

Eyes like freshly dug up rubies studied my appearance, already making me feel small and self-conscious from the bags under my eyes. "You look familiar... aren't you that raccoon eyed chick from before? What the hell are you doing here?"

Another jab pushed through the airs I had put on that I nearly broke my smile. Instead, I conceded with a shrug. "Just checking in," I spoke cryptically. Rather than stick around for more questions and insults, I waved farewell to him in passing, feeling my strength dwindling fast as I came to hit my limit.

"By the way, you can call me Rem," I said, though I didn't know why I bothered introducing myself to someone I would probably have no chance of seeing again. Even then, it didn't even occur to me that it would have been wiser to have used my alias, Lucidity, instead of my childhood nickname. By the time Bakugou had bothered to respond, I was out of time and at my limit. Rather than end with the life cycle of the dream, I was 'unplugged' and simply faded away from it entirely as my hair fully turned black and exhaustion finally won out. He was cute. Too bad he was such an asshole.