Owner Pose
Nia Nal     Krakathoom! Or something. It's sort of like a flash of lightning in which Dreamer appears. And... to what does she arrive at? Well... a dream. Or dreams. It's like someone crammed a horde of paintings together. A ten-year old in a loincloth with a sword rides a cybernetic T-rex across a cotton-candy wasteland, while orcs do battle with sailor senshi teams even as a racecar pits itself against a winged unicorn in a race across a road made entirely of skulls and pepperoni. There's no rhyme or reason, even for a dream.
    Indeed, for two nights, now, people have been reporting bizarre dreams, nightmares, and other dream-related phenomenon which has been making it hard for people to get restful sleep. Who knows why? Still, when you're a hero or vigilante, and you have dream-themed powers, it sort of behooves you to investigate. So Dreamer came, even clad in her costume. To be fair, she's technically dreaming like every other person in this mashup. That just means... different things for her.
    For example, she materializes on a platform of soft, floating blue light... Just as a hockey-masked man with a cleaver leaps towards her, massive knife raised for a vicious chop. She's only even doing the fists on hips hero pose for half a second before she shrieks,"Omigodno-" A brief exertion of will follows, and the hockey-masked man tumbles away from her, smacked away by an enormous rolled up newspaper.
    She just stares after the nightmare with a flat look as it tumbles away before vanishing. Then she plunges her faces into her hands, and exudes a long-suffering sigh.
Terry O'Neil At the tavern, the Cheshire Cat is leaning against the bar while someone who looks like Beast Boy, dressed in sixteenth century garb, is singing:


~Who Mario Karts like Vorpal?
Who breaks mugs like Vorpal?
Who's more fun than all Raven's dry jabs than Vorpal?~
The Cheshire steps forth and sings for the patrons, who are lifting their mugs,
~I am reticent, yes, it's so consternatin'
I needed encouragement
Thank you, Garfu~

Beast Boy grins and sends suds flying as he raises his mug,
~Well, there's no one so quick to glitter as you... too much?~

At which point the entire tarven joins in:
~No one's quite like Vorpal
No one's bright like Vorpal
And in flea baths nobody can bite like Vorpal!~

Vorpal frowns and looks at the Patrons over his shoulder as he leaps onto the bar.
~Now come on my guys, don't deliver
such a backhanded ode, will you send me up-river?
Let us try to be kind? Is that fair? Don't you care? WELLLLL
NO ONE FIGHTS LIKE VORPA-~

Suddenly, the entire tavern turns around and stares at Dreamer. The musical number comes to an absolute halt. Record scratch. The tavern and its patrons vanish- except for the portion of bar that Vorpal is standing on.

"Um... hello. What's... this?" he glances around, and then back at Dreamer. "And who are you and what are you doing in my musical number?"
Tommy Shepherd     Tommy and sleep aren't two words that tend to go together very often. After all this time he's not sure if it has something to do with his mutant abilities; it's just something that he has accepted as a part of his life. Which is totally fine. You're most vulnerable when you're asleep, after all. He'd rather avoid it entirely, but even his altered physiology requires rest. More for mental fatigue than anything, really.

    Still, he fights it. Which is why he's out on the boardwalk, Coney dog in hand as he walks from one end of it to the other. It's a nice night out, with the breeze coming off the water and the soothing sound of the waves coming in, a gentle whisper against the sun-bleached wood beneath his feet.

    He's about to take a bite of his 'dawg when someone bumps into him, and he calls out a rough, "Hey, watch it!"

    No, he does. He being the guy who bumped into him, Tommy.

    Wait, Tommy is Tommy. But this guy is also Tommy. Same hair, same eyes, same build... too stick-straight to be Pietro. Tommy--the Tommy with the hot dog--takes a hurried step backwards, gaze widening as he looks around.

    Five steps away, Tommy is fishing off the side of the dock. And then beyond him, Tommy is down on one knee, proposing to Tommy in a magical movie moment (aside for the seagull crap he's kneeling in). Tommys walk hand-in-hand, Tommys gaze pensively out at the water or look wonderingly up at the stars, Tommys stare at their phone while their mom and dad (Tommy and also Tommy, respectively) try to encourage them to participate in some family fun.

    With great trepidation, he looks down at the hot dog in his hand. Which is not also Tommy, thankfully, but it IS suddenly a bowl of the mystery porridge sludge he used to get force-fed back when he was under the gentle, loving care of the State. With a scowl he slams it down into a trash can as he storms away, dodging Tommys left and right who suddenly know nothing about personal space. Which is honestly not very Tommy-like of them.

    He shoulders open the first restaurant door he passes by and catches himself in a half-stumble when he enters on the tail end of a musical number, and Tommy stands there in the doorway. "Is this, uh, sort of like one of those Medieval Times places?" he asks.

    Another Tommy walks by behind him, holding the hand of a smaller, kid-sized Tommy who is clutching a balloon.
America Chavez     A succession of resounding thuds preceeds the emergence of a five-pointed star in mid-air. A dark-skinned woman in red hightops, black hotpants, a blue tee shirt, and a star-spangled jacket hops through the glowing star portal. She hovers above the ground, not even caring to try and look like she isn't flying. "Okay then... not Batburger..." She sighs and runs a hand through her curly black hair.

    "I swear to God. If it's not throwing up barriers against my passage it's Wonderland making the Starling Highway turn into the New Jersey turnpike..." Ms. America looks at Vorpal on the bar. "Of course you'd go full Disney in your dreams, Tere-Bear." She gives a glance to Dreamer and blinks. "Like the suit" she says with a grin. "Very... Metropolis."

    The hockey-mask wearing maniac comes up behind her, cleaver raised for a strike. Instead of exerting her will, she snarls and places a fist across his jaw with enough force to powder concrete; sending him flying into the distance, complete with a Team Rocket twinkle star as a finish.

    Her gaze shifts to Tommy, Tommy, and Tommy and recognition dawns on her face. She has to stop herself. This isn't the universe where Tommy and her are teammates is it? It's so hard to keep track of those things when you jump from one universe to another with relative ease. Instead she offers, "How do you know which of you is the one dreaming?" she asks the young white-haired man.
Nia Nal     Dreamer just sort of... stares at Terry. Because... well... he's participating in a very on-the-nose sort of rendition of Beauty and the Beast... Or... Terry and the Beast Boy? She's not sure how it works out. The harder part is pretending she doesn't recognize Vorpal. She's in costume right now! Well... her dream self is. Her real-world self is wearing yoga pants and a Wonder Woman fan t-shirt. So. Yeah.
    Underneath her mask, she blushes. Then she realizes this is a dream, and she's only blushing if she decides she's blushing. So the blush fades, and she puts on her best 'I'm a big damn hero' voice,"I'm the Dreamer. This is the dream. Or, rather, many dreams. It seems some... uh... ne'er-do-well has been playing with powers he does not understand and-" Then Tommy steps into the restaraunt, and she gets a peak at the many Tommy's outside. A megaphone materializes in her hand, and she holds up one finger,"Just a moment." Then she sticks her head out of the tavern door, megaphone to her mouth, and points at the Tommy that just stepped in said door,"Okay... all of you except for this guy? I'm going to need you to move along to either the Churro Boardwalk, or the Speedy Cola lake. This area is closed until further notice. Yeah. Thanks." The megaphone disappears.
    Just in time for America to deliver a literal punchline to the 'masked killer'. Dreamer begins to massage the bridge of her nose, and she points at America, Tommy, and Terry,"Okay... you you and you... I know this is suuuper disruptive, but... I'm going to try to explain this, like... just once... Okay. So. Lots of people are dreaming. And the border between these individual dreams is flailing. If you're... used to this kind of stuff, you can kind of get a sense of what's going on... Essentially, it's not just one dream. It's like... all the dreams. All at once. And it isn't functioning super well. Because someone thought they knew better. I apologize for just popping in... I'll be out of your way as soon as I can figure out where the meddler is."
Terry O'Neil Vorpal gasps, "America, you're looking /fan/tastic, amiga!" He hops off the bar, which vanishes promptly, in order to greet her. "Wait. Am I dreaming of you or are you dreaming of me, or are we both dreaming?"

rFortunately, Dreamer's explanation covers those basees, and the Cheshire cat grins. "Oh, is that all? I've been to a dream conjunction before... but back then it was someone mucking about... and we ended up building things out of legos and we got chased by gigantic pianos but I sent multi-armed giant Sergei Rachmaninovs after them so that took care of--"

Focus, Vorpal.

"Dreamer, pleasure to meet you! I'm Vorpal, the Cheshire Cat, a pleasure to meet a fellow dreamtripper-"

The Tommy Tommy and Tommy show stops the cat cold, though. He raises an eyebrow and lets out a whistle. "... okay... that level of inception-dreaming is impressive." He walks towards the white-haired guy and offers a hand. "Vorpal, as I mentioned. That was some very impressing ego-splitting... or was that Ego, Id and Superego? Or Desire and Despair and- no, wait, that's an Annie Lennox song..." he shakes his head. In dreams, he is even much more... Vorpal than he usually is. "Sorry, I am still a little bit rattled. I usually prefer my dreams to be completely lunatic. I am absolutely affronted by having a lucid dream right now- I make decisions all day, you'd think I'd be spared of it by the sweet embrace of Morpheus..."

He looks around, "But I notice he's not here. So like a man, embrace you, alpha-wave you, and leaves you. Typical. In any case... what was your name again? And are you here to help Dreamer and us with whatever it is that is causing dreams to get mooshed together like the remnants of the daily special at Joe's Diner at the end of the day?"

He glances back at Dreamer, "So... how do we find the meddler?"
Tommy Shepherd     First off, no one answered Tommy's question. His focus has shifted away from all of the other Tommys milling about behind him with the sort of casual acceptance of dream logic that the brains of most people who dream have. And while his brain functions on eternal fast forward, it is otherwise your average brain. And right now, that brain needs food. Food that isn't awful wallpaper paste with bits of shredded cardboard that he's supposed to believe is nutritional.

    "So what's the up-down on getting one of those obnoxiously oversized turkey legs, then?" He gestures around to the... decor. It just looks like the kind of place someone could get an obnoxiously oversized turkey leg! "I'm starving. Big caloric deficiency I have to meet, you know? Growing boy and all."

    Then America confronts him with the reality (unreality?) of the situation, and Tommy turns, horror-movie slowly, to look out at the boardwalk beyond the doorway. "Oh," he says. His voice is very flat. "Yeah, in hindsight that's pretty obvious, huh."

    Hands on his hips, he backs up the Dreamer's megaphone-emboldened announcement with a yell of "I'm not this narcissistic! Get the hell out of my subconscious!"

    He turns to Dreamer immediately and puts on a charming smile. "Promise. I know I'm good looking but this is taking it too far."

    Post-explanation, which he takes with a couple of nods at appropriate places and the sort of casual acceptance of crazy stuff that the brains of most people who live in this universe (and don't keep their heads in the sand) have, Tommy shakes Vorpal's hand, winks at Ms. America, and then fires off a couple of finger-guns.

    Which don't materialize dream-bullets. He seems to realize this could be a thing that he could do, and he re-aims them up at the rafters. "Pew pew!" he says.

    The timbers above explode in a shower of wood shavings and sawdust.

    "Oh, boo! Boring. I could do that if I was awake. Anyway yeah sure what the hell, I'm in. Can't be worse than what my brain usually comes up with. What's the plan?"
America Chavez     America smiles at Terry. "I always fantastic, Vorp" she says tossing her hair over one shoulder. "And... we're in the dream. That makes sense of some of this..." she looks to Dreamer. "I'm not dreaming. I'm here awake and about as I am anywhere. I was -going- to pick up some late night Batburger before hitting the sheets but instead--" She gestures to the slowly closing star-portal behind her. "Something is messing with the interdimensional Highway that I use to get about and so... obviously I ended up here instead of in the depths of grease filled heaven."

    She shrugs. "But I'm here and I'm something of an inter-dimensional hero, so if some -pendejo- is screwing with the Dream then it's part of my job to help fix it. So I'm with Vorpal on this one. Oh... by the way," she tosses a thumb at herself for indication. "Ms. America. Nice to meet you, Dreamer." She tosses her thumb towards Tommy. "He's Speed" she turns on the young man. "Speaking of, why would you -ever- need a gun? You run faster than bullets can travel on the worst of days."
Nia Nal     "I remember you from the news, actually. Cheshire cat... like in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass right? Well. That's about as likely as any of this happening, so..." Dreamer offers a thumbs up... even as her idle imagination causes a bubble with the Beatles playing 'Daytripper' to float past from nowhere. She pretends she doesn't notice it.

    "To be fair, it's mot just your dreams. It's... a lot of peoples' dreams. And... I'm not super-experienced as this dream-heroing stuff either. Usually I work out there, in the real world. Still, if what I remember from my... um... family's... super secret dream knowledge... yeah... We're supposed to look for a figure or object that's entirely out of place..." A pause follows, as a tiny knight on a chicken runs past as if he were trying to joust a mouse, and then she looks back up to Terry, and goes on,"That may... prove problematic though."

    She lets her head drift back to Tommy a moment later,"I... I can't tell if that's... like... a facade, or if you're flirting, or you're actually that self-involved or... Why are you like this?" She watches the boardwalk clearing off, then shakes her head,"It's a dream... they COULD be part of you... or they could just be extras, morality play style- AND OMIGOD, CAREFUL WITH THE FINGERGUNS." She has no idea whether or she can be injured like this, but... "Please put the safety on those." Which... really clears nothing up at all.
    As if to punctuate America's statement, a 'Batburger' drops form the 'sky'... With legs, and hands... and a twirly mustache, tophat, and cane, and begins to bounce around as if offering America a chance at 'fisticuffs'. "This must be what it's like to have adhd. Ms. America... did you want me to get that for you, or are you..." She points at the Manburger meaningfully.
Terry O'Neil "You know him, America? Huh, he's a speedster then? Cool. I love speedsters, they're /fun/! The best pranks I've orchestrated, I've pulled with speedsters. Like the great suds flood of 2021--- ah those were the days." He sniffs, pulling a hankie out of midair and dabs his eyes, "But alas, times now gone... Sunrise... Sunset... Sunrise... Sunset... swiftly fly the years---"

Coming back to focus, "So if we are looking for an object that is out of place, well, it figures-"

A figure skater floats on by, his skates leaving a perfect line-drawing of Anne of Cleves on the floor, part of which is ice now, "That in the Dream, we would need to look for a figure or a thing that makes /perfect sense/ for it to be there, and therefore doesn't stand out."
America Chavez     America looks down at the Manburger and sighs. "I've got this one... thanks" she says offering a wink to Dream before dropping to the floor and kicking the Manburger with enough force to break another hole in reality. The small star portal is just large enough to fit the accosting abstract creature and she snaps her fingers with a flash of a sparking star tattoo on her wrist. The portal winks out.

    "So... something that looks completely normal in... all of..." she looks out over the dreamscape. "This..." She shakes her head, curls bouncing with the gesture. "Okay then." She looks at Dream. "You're the expert here, so please by all means," she ushers Dream to start them off, "lead the way."