2013.10.15 - Welcome to the Jungle

3:49 am.

Perched upon a slab of concrete beneath the Aparo Expressway bridge is a young woman from Scotland. She's an unassuming sort, in spite of being up and out in a place like Gotham City at this hour, but considering she cut her teeth in Glasgow, it's nothing she's afraid of. She's scouted the place out well enough in advance... the only other people in the vicinity are the homeless who have long since fallen asleep.

Seated not far from a trash can fire, Lynette looks out over the waters, eyeing the skyline of Metropolis beyond. She's struck by how differently it looks from the waterfront of Gotham, but not for long. Soon enough, the dreams and nightmares of those around her begins to draw her attention toward another place.

A wicked smirk draws across her lips. Closing her eyes, she reaches out with her unique form of telepathy, finding all of the minds that are active in their dreams. So many minds... so many twisted imaginations... but two in particular seem to jump out at her like bright lights on a foggy ocean.

Deadpool... Lunair.

"Say hello to the Dreamraker," she whispers under her breath, and then, with a nod of her head forward, both of the two have suddenly found their dreams mashed together, waking or otherwise coming to a bright awareness of their place inside a gigantic, massive, maze-like hospital. It's not a normal hospital, to be sure, for there are no patients to be found where the two come together, but rather, a number of empty beds attached to dastardly devices of torture.

In the real world, Lynette giggles.

Other minds are brought in, one after the other. The homeless, the vagabonds, and those who live nearby to the port. One by one the beds are filled... and within two of them, strapped down beneath those dastardly, spiked devices... are Mend and Helena Bertinelli.

Deadpool blinks himself to awareness in the dream. He's wearing his Deadpool mask and DeadpoolBrand red footie pajamas covered in the DP brand logos. He's clutching a teddy bear under one arm and an oversized machine gun in the other, and looks a bit befuddled.

"Lunair. Lunair. "

"LunairLunairLunairLunairLunairLunairLunairLunairLunairLunairLunairLunair"

"I feel like I'm having a dream. Is this a dream? Have you seen those other voices hanging around?"

A bright yellow text box pops into existence. '''Yep, I'm here. I'm here, too!''' another text box says, manifesting over his head. Deadpool looks from one to another. "Can I get some exposition here, please?"

Uhhhh, something about dreamwalking, some sort of malevolent telepathy, and maybe some bad jalapeno chimichangas? The other text box flickers. '''I was having a perfectly pleasant dream about Carrie Fischer and Jenna Jameson, so I have no idea what's going on. Lemme get a beer and I'll come back in a few minutes. '''

Lunair has ruffled, fancy pajamas. That's just how she rolls. She dreams peacefully of happy things. And then suddenly. There's Deadpool. In her dreams. She blinks, looking to Deadpool. There he is. "Oh wow." She rubs at her eyes. Pokes her arm. "I - am in my pajamas."

And she was having a wonderful time. Probably something involving tiptoeing through the tulips. She glances - oh wow. "That sure is a box." Yup. She seems startled. "Okay. I'll um, watch out here." Sure, he gets to go get a beer. "And I thought all the food was fresh. But you're not supposed to eat spicy stuff late at night or your dreams get weirder than late night infomercials." Slap nuts indeed.

Helena Bertinelli remembers finally going to sleep in her own bed in her own apartment for the first time in easily a week, so when the strange antiseptic smell that she usually associates with a medical facility draws her attention she tries to frown and just burrow deeper under her favorite blanket. But... she can't. THAT prompts her to open her eyes. And promptly close them again. This has to be a dream. This has to be a ...nightmare. The HELL is going on?

Mend was in a hotel. She's spent the weekend at a conference for young engineers. One Pepper suggested she attend. When she wakes up in the hospital...in costume...she accepts it as part of the dream logic to start with. It seems real, feels real, so it IS real. For now, anyway.

"Oh know, we can't have that!" Lynette can't help but find herself absolutely fascinated by the nature of Deadpool. The fact that he and Lunair seem to know each other, though? That just won't work at all.

Within the dream, one of the doors to this twisted lab suddenly swooshes open, like something out of Star Trek. Standing in the hallway beyond is... is... a Dalek? Yes, in fact, it is a Dalek, and it rolls into the lab speaking aloud in its menacing voice.

"YOU DO NOT BELONG. YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

The Dalek raises its arm, and fires a bright blue blast Lunair's way. However, she doesn't disintegrate, which might be expected by someone familiar with the pop culture television show from which the villain came, but rather, she collapses on the floor, out cold.

As more and more of those sleeping Gothamites appear in the dream, strapped to the beds alongside of Mend and Helena, the sociopathic metahuman responsible for it all finds it simply too difficult to resist going in herself. With a soft sigh, she lies down on an oversized winter coat, and is out cold in the blink of an eye.

Inside the dream, the Dalek turns and faces Deadpool. "YOU DO NOT BELONG. YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Uh. Wha?"

Deadpool is clearly not a Doctor Who fan. "I don't get it. What are you supposed to be?" He looks down at the straps on his chest and arms, then up at the spikes over him.

The white text box pops into existence. '''It's a Dalek, you unlearned heathen. Didn't you ever watch the BBC?''' "Is that like the history channel, or something?" Deadpool asks. Doctor Who suuuuuucks,  the yellow box says, manifesting opposite the white one. '''Star Trek's got hotter babes. You suck. Your /mom/ sucks. How does that- what does that even mean?! '''

"Guys, guys. You both suck. And if I'm gonna get tied down, it better involve some kind of sexy chick in latex." Deadpool flexes his suddenly, absurdly oversized muscles, snapping the straps in place, then swings his feet out and stands up.

He produces a gun from nowhere and pulls the trigger once, shooting the Dalek square in the eyestalk. "I have a feeling there's some sexy women nearby who need a hero." Weapons- and his costume- start appearing from nowhere. Deadpool is suddenly covered in more guns and knives and rocket launchers than is physically possible for a person to be covered with, like an armory threw up on him. He chews a cigar through his facemask, little smoke curls drifting around a toothy grin. "So let's go see some hot babe-on-babe rescuin' action," he tells the voice boxes. '''Woot! Hawt! ''' the yellow one says, bobbing along in place behind him. I just want it on record that /I/ voted for a rerun of that one dream where we get to judge the Miss USA bikini mud wrestling contest, the other opines, following Deadpool along as he walks brusquely down the hallway.

A bit of a wriggle and a squirm and Mend breaks free of her bonds, rolling to her feet as she glances around. Okay. OPtion 1: This is real and she got drugged and then kidnapped. She's as vulnerable to that as anyone else. Option 2: It's a mass hallucination, no doubt induced by some kind of supervillain. Option 3: She's dreaming. Or any combination of 2 and 3. She *hears* the Daleks, but they're not in the room with her yet. Yet.

Helena Bertinelli has to take a few seconds to avoid hyperventilating, but when tugging at the straps restraining her actually WORKS... she hastily rolls off the side of her bed away from the door and takes a second to take stock. Completely convinced that this is weirdly somehow real (the damned Bat has put her through worse), she looks to she that she's still in grey yoga pants and a red t-shirt with 'interfice te cochleare' printed on it to resemble words carved in stone. Hearing the weird electronic noises nearby and someone's voice, she stays crouched down behind her hospital bed and waits. The room itself doens't resemble anything from Thompkins' clinic, thankfully.

"EXTERRRRRMIN-"

The Dalek erupts in sparks and goes offline, thanks to Deadpool's well aimed shot. However, no sooner than he's out in the hallway does he come into contact with a strikingly tall ginger, wearing an outfit of flattering black latex that is extremely cliche. She even has heels. It's Lynette of course, her own mental projection into the merged dream that all are suffering under.

"Hey there, handsome," she quips, her Scottish accent as thick as ever. For a moment, she seems absolutely taken by him. Must be the cigar. It's a short lived oogling, however, before she's giving him a suspicious look. "Christ! What's with all the payload? Don't tell me Scotland Yard sent you." Before Deadpool can answer, she's shushing him. "Come on, we've got to get the people out of here before they begin the procedure!"

One might be prone to ask, which procedure? Well. For Helena and Mend, that's about to become apparent.

In the rooms where Helena and Mend were strapped down, the machines mounted above each medical bed come to life. They shine their lights on the patients below and begin lowering high-intensity laser drills down to their foreheads. One after the other, the drills begin to bore into their patients heads, eliciting screams of agony that seem all too real. It doesn't all happen at once, suggesting that there may be time to get some of the victims out before they suffer or die.

In the real world, those citizens of Gotham that are becoming victims in the dream begin to seize violently in their sleep.

"We have to find the others," repeats Dreamraker, urging Deadpool toward the room where Helena and Mend have just wrestled free of their medical beds. Each have just narrowly escaped a horrible fate at the hand of the laser drills, but the screaming coming from the room continues to mount with each new victim.

"Ooo la /la/," Deadpool says, offering a low wolf whistle. "Hel-LO nurse!"

At that moment, Lynette's alluring garb is replaced by an improbably cliche outfit that only the naughtiest of nurses or most jaded of strippers would consider appropriate.

"Why, what naughty nurse flick did you wander out of?" he inquires, sauntering towards Lynnette.

'''Wait, wait. I'm suspicious,''' the white text box says, popping up in front of Deadpool. Hot nurses always appear in our dreams, and they're improbably friendly. Another box pops up. '''Booooooooooooooooooooooooobs. ''' "What's your point?" Deadpool asks the white box, with a shrug.

'''I'm saying, this is /too/ improbably friendly. She even has something for us to do. I should have no reason to be suspicious. '''

"Which means... I should have /every reason/ to be suspicious," Deadpool says, narrowing his eyes at Lynette.

The yellow text box pops up right in front of Deadpool. '''Dude. Ga-ZONGAS. '''

"Gotta go with the yellow," Deadpool says, shrugging at the white text box. He pokes an 'x' in the upper right hand corner and the white box vanishes.

"Ok, hot stuff! Point me at 'em and stand back far enough to admire my handiwork and the Best Glutes in the Marvel continuity." He turns dramatically and starks walking towards the room with Helen and Mend, weapons ready and eyes narrowed.

Mend frowns and starts trying to pull people off the beds and onto the floor before any more of them get killed. Even if it's NOT real, then that likely indicates some kind of psychic attack, and she's not stupid. Psychic attacks can be just as bad as the physical kind. For her...potentially worse.

"What in the actual hell?" Helena abandons her hiding place when the elderly man in the next bed over starts screaming, but she's not fast enough to help him. The next, though, she can. Not bothering to try and unbuckle restraints, she simply wraps her arms around the heavyset middle-aged woman and yanks her off of the bed away from that.... whatever that is. Settling the woman to the floor she moves on to the next person to give them the same less than gentle treatment.

Mend receives no shortage of thank you's and other expressions of gratitude as she begins helping people out of their beds. The victims seem just as confused and disoriented, but every time she touches an arm or removes a strap, the tactile contact is strikingly real. If it is a dream, it's likely one impossibly more vivid than she has ever encountered.

Lynette *gasps* when her costume is replaced, looking down at herself for a moment before flashing an absolutely disapproving look at Deadpool. The look, in short order, is replaced by one of absolute mischief, and with a wink, Deadpool's costume is replaced with nothing more than a speedo. "Two can play this game, bawbag."

Later, should Deadpool be so prone to check, he might find a small piece of paper crammed somewhere inside of that speedo with a phone number written on it. It won't exist in the real world, but Lynette has a fleeting suspicion that before the merged dream breaks down or is broken out of, he'll check. She absolutely must look him up in the real world some time.

Helena is receiving similar words of thanks as Deadpool and Dreamraker come into the room. Lynette seems absolutely terrified, pulling back for a moment and putting her hands up to her face. She elicits a horrible shriek, which does wonders for the nerves of those being freed by Mend and Helena.

Sike!

The shriek and the arrival of others throws many of the survivors into panic. One of them grabs Mend by the shoulders, crying, "What's happening? Where are we?" While another, the middle-aged woman, comes upon Helena with terror in her eyes. "We've been kidnapped! I was asleep, and I woke up here!"

Lynette stands back, admiring her handiwork for a moment, unable to conceal the mirth from her face.

Deadpool doesn't even stop for a moment. "Aww right, goin' with the banana hammock," he says, nodding to himself. He winks at Lynette, still wearing his mask. Which somehow winks? Shuttup, it's a comic thing. "Someone's enjoyin the eye candy."

Deadpool kicks down the door. There's no reason for it- it's one of those swingy hospital doors that doesn't even really latch. But he kicks it off the hinges anyway.

"Ok you primitive screwheads, listen up!" he announces to the room, hoisting a giant rifle onto each shoulder. "I'm Deadpool, and I am here to effect a rescue. Affect? Wait, I'm not the grammar guy.  I'm sorry, I'm to traumatized by the image of us in a speedo. I think the ginger's writer has some repressed sexuality issues.  "Like her /mom/," Deadpool announces with a gleeful laugh. The text boxes are hovering over his shoulders where everyone in the room can read them.

"Wait. Is that... /Mend/?!" Deadpool squints, looking at Marissa Sometimes. "Oh man, I love this dream! Between you and me," he asides to Lynette, "Mend /totes/ has the hots for me." '''Totally. '''

"And you. I know you... from somewhere." He frowns, waggling a gun at Helena. "I have this feeling that you, too, have some kind of strongly repressed emotional reaction to me," he says, ignoring the flashing white text box behind him going '''That's the chick you hogtied and beat up in Gotham two months ago. You don't recognize her? Her shirt says- I don't care what it says. Ga-ZONGAS. ''' "Quiet, you two," Deadpool says, waggling a hand absently at the two text boxes flickering behind him.

"If this hadn't been a nightmare before. Deadpool. Shut up. I'm gay." And she turns back to the others. "Not quite sure what's going on, but I'm here. And in costume. And looking for bad guys to beat up." Comforting, Mend. Not. But she's not convinced this IS real yet.

"I know. Me too," Helena tells the middle-aged woman. "For now, we gotta stick together and help each other to get outta here. Okay?" As she reaches to pull the next person out of their bed, she is still very much convinced that this is real. Completely therapy-inducing fucked up, but still real.

And then, of course, Deadpool is there. "Holy shit!" Helena throws her hands up on front of her face, but could it be because she thinks someone is about to attack, or because of that Speedo? The white and yellow text boxes can debate that all they want.

Keeping her hands almost completely blocking her view of Speedopool, she calls out toward the man and his peanut gallery entourage, "You have any idea what the hell's going on here?" Yes, she's editing her language in front of aforementioned middle-aged woman.

A chuckle escapes from Lynette as she watches Mend and Helena reacting to their arrival. The textboxes also get a most peculiar look, but she ignores them for now. However, as the trio begin to question the validity of what's going on, her smile fades.

Suddenly, Lynette is garbed in armor of pure adamantium, painted black. It's sheathed against her body in a way that is both flattering to her figure while also giving room for dastardly spikes upon each shoulder, down her legs, and up her back. She steps toward them, her eyes now filled with fury.

"You are wasting time." Her voice seems modulated, made to sound more menacing than it really is. "These people are dying!" She nods her head forward, and suddenly?

The room disappears, replaced with blackness upon which they all stand, seemingly suspended and unable to move. All about there appear visuals of what is happening in the waking world, where people in their beds lie seizing and dying. With the blink of an eye, the hospital room re-appears, and those people who were revealed to be dying in their beds are the same who are having their heads drilled with those dastardly laser devices.

"There are four other rooms!" declares Lynette, her eyes furious. "Find them, help them, or break free. But never doubt the Dreamraker. This nightmare is real."

Raising her gauntled-laden hand, she waves to the group, and disappears!

Suddenly, from all corners of the room, Daleks appear. One after the other they show up, rolling closer. "EXTERMINATE!" they begin to cry. "EXTERRRMINATE!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg

No, seriously, link that, and spin it up on your computer. Go ahead- I'll wait.

Deadpool shakes his head, dropping his weapons as the Daleks close. "You know- I never thought I'd say this," he says slowly, the weapons falling to the floor. Black and red flames limn his body, burning across him and leaving his two-tone uniform in place. But his boots are four-inch platform heels, and the Deadpool logo is on his chest. For some reason, long, Farrah Fawcett hair grows from his head, and he slowly elevates on a platform appearing from nowhere.

"But there's a time for shooting. And sexin'. And a time for makin' war, and a time for makin' love." A guitar appears in his hands, and he tunes it with a few careful thrums as the music builds up.

"And there's a time where all you can do... where the only thing you /can/ do..."

He slams a blistering chord on the guitar and fireworks shoot up and pyrotechnics go off and it's like the Fourth of July just EXPLODES around him and the giant center stags.

"Is RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK!"

He starts power strumming the guitar, head thrashing, and the sheer, undiluted /awesomeness/ of Deadpool rocking one of the GREATEST ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME starts destroying the Daleks, because of the incredible levels of Uberness he's elevating the song to.

Seriously, it's like being right there at a Guns'n'Roses concert, live, center stage front, and I literally do not have the literary ability to describe how epic it is. And it rocks the Daleks so hard they /explode from the epic/.

Okay. It's not real, but it's impacting the real...and then Deadpool lets loose on the Daleks with the power of Rock and Roll! Not real. And Deadpool is completely insane. Utterly. Delusional. It's what she, paradoxically, likes about him - even if she'd never admit it to her fellow heroes.

Focus. Focus. And she does...and a grenade with "ACME" printed on it and a lit fuse appears in her hand. She throws it at the few surviving Daleks. Boom! "See. We can kick their butts."

Helena startles with a gasp when everything goes black to reveal how people are really suffering because of this mess. When everything reverts back to the 'hospital', she shakes her head and mutters to herself, "Oh, you have GOT to be fucking kidding me." She takes the middle-aged woman by one arm and speaks quickly, perhaps a bit urgently. "If that psycho was right, you've got two choices. Help me help these other people as fast as possible, or save just yourself and wake up. I don't have time to coddle you." And then, Speedopool or not, middle-aged woman moving to help or not, Guns 'n' Roses or not, she moves to try and get the next person in the room free of their bed. The Daleks only get a withering glare from her because until they try to actually interfere, she couldn't give a rat's ass what they yell. Exterminate, exfoliate, whatevever. At least they seem to explode nicely when attacked by the power of hair metal. And they're WAY less intimidating than the Silence.

In the real world, Lynette gasps in her sleep. Her eyes clench shut, and she trembles against the ground. She's happened upon one of the most insane minds she's ever encountered, and it's becoming too much for her to manage.

One by one, as the Dalek's explode, they leave cracks in the dreamscape, portals that shine a brilliant white, like looking into the afterlife. The cracks in the nightmare spread, creating a web of instability throughout the freakish hospital room. Lynette lets out a scream in her sleep, which echoes throughout the minds of everyone connected to the shared dream.

And then, just like that, it's over.

People across Gotham awaken, confused and disoriented. Their loved ones, some of them awake already, let loose sighs of relief as the ones they care about awaken from the nightmarish prison.

Helena, Mend, Lunair and Deadpool are all thrust from the dream, waking up violently wherever they were sleeping.

And all across Gotham, sirens come to life, as loved ones call for their dead.

Dreamraker has come to America, and the nightmares have just begun.

Deadpool sits bolt upright in his footie pajamas, with his stuffed plushie in one arm and a machine gun in the other. "I have /got/ to lay off those chalupas before I go to bed," Deadpool says with a sigh. He fishes under the bed for a bottle of tequila and promptly chugs down a third of it. "They give me such weird dreams. Oooh! Maybe if I go back to sleep, I can find that hot ginger chick!" he says brightly to the dim, run-down room he's the sole occupant of.

'''Sounds like a plan to me, good buddy! I am /totally/ in favor of abusing our Brain Games power to justify haunting that chick's dreams via use of a retroactive psychotelepathic bond!''' "I don't know what any of those words means." '''We're gonna cheat and dream about that redhead! Wait, Gazongas?! Go the **** to sleep, Deadpool! ''' Deadpool salutes the air firmly and falls back on his stained mattress and starts snoring. Immediately.

Ugh. Her head aches. Mend is glad the conference is over and she doesn't have early class. Slowly, she starts to pack to check out, but she's totally going to find the telepath responsible for that and kick their butt. In the real world.

Helena Bertinelli gasps and sits up abruptly as she wakes from that horrid dream, but then the lingering aches from where Bane beat the crap out of her make themsleves known and she has to spend a moment catching her breath. "God. That sucked." There's no way in hell she'll be able to sleep again tonight. And she can't exactly call Clint for idle chat anymore. Fucking Bat. Wonder if Oracle would get angry if she just went out and did some rooftop hopping to clear her head? Well hell. You know what? Too bad. Rubbing at her eyes with one hand, she tosses her blanket aside and moves to where she keeps her costume stashed. Maybe she might even happen across that clown posse Deadpool while she's out and see if her nightmare was more than just a nightmare ... fuck. No. Don't even think about that, that's just way too screwed up to even consider.