Nocturn Core (Abridged)

I was at my dorm with Autumn. My roommate was a former quarterback for his high school's football team, but as he explained later, he got sick of tiring himself out on the field. He invited a girl over from Japan. She was originally from America. The girl had long, slightly curly, black hair. She was really proud of the fact that she was on a game show in Japan. Basically, competitors fought and raced each other on a variety of stages in order to prove their skill. I realized she was talking about a game show I had participated in recently. We each had a white handheld device which allowed us to connect to the game course. We synchronized for a quick practice round. Her avatar on the game show was similar to her actual appearance, but she wore a schoolgirl outfit and star pins in her hair. I took the form of Igarashi Ganta for some reason. For the first round, we appeared on a circular platform in the middle of a pool. The objective was to push the other person off the platform. When the fight began, the girl charged at me. One of her star pins flew off her head and struck me in the heart. I never knew that magic was allowed on the game show; my dad had forced me into participating, and no one told me the rules in English. Anyway, I stumbled backward, and it didn't take long for her to shove me into the water.

"Moonbeam is victorious!" the announcer screamed. I popped out of the game world for a moment, stunned.

"Wow, you're good," I commented.

"I'm one of the best," she answered without leaving the game world. I heard her voice through my console. "Shooting Star Moonbeam." I watched her standing on the platform in awe. When she smiled at me and pointed at the next stage, I reconnected.

I found myself on an obstacle course. I had to climb over a massive cube made of stone, run down a slippery slope while keeping my footing so I could jump over the pit of spikes that came right after, jump across logs sticking vertically out of the water, and finally run across a bridge before a flame on a fuse could burn it down. Moonbeam sent me a heart through the chat interface.

"Good luck!" she said. With the sound of a pistol firing, the second round began. I struggled just getting over the stone block. By the time I made it to the other side, Moonbeam was already on her way over the spike pit. I began to catch up, however. I completed the log obstacle in half her time, so we were speeding down the bridges on each side of the course at roughly the same time. She still came out ahead.

"Moonbeam wins again! She's on fire!" the announcer cried. The bridge erupted in flames behind me.

"That's enough for now," she said, disconnecting. I followed suit.

The dream jumped. Wanting to improve my skills, I helped Autumn join the game show roster. We connected to the game world and set up a system to rapidly strengthen our avatars. Basically, the avatars collected experience and leveled up like in a roleplaying game. There were porcupine monsters that shot out their spines and regenerated them in the game world. Each of the spines gave a little bit of experience. I bought thirty porcupines from a merchant and put them in a room with us. Autumn and I did our best to destroy all of the spines as they shot toward us, and we quickly gained levels. I was already level 121 when we started. By the time I reached level 139, one of the system administrators appeared and destroyed my porcupines. He accused me of cheating because it was too easy for us to level this way. Without considering anything I had to say, he took away the levels we'd gained - plus one more each. I decided this wasn't worth it and disconnected.

The dream jumped. Autumn and I were working on building some kind of giant truck for a performance downtown. It had to be ten times the size of a normal cargo truck. We connected huge steel boxes on lifts while the other people worked on the exterior. It wasn't very hard, but we had to make sure everything was aligned properly while maximizing the size of the cargo chamber. When we were satisfied with it, we had the guy controlling the lift let us out at the front of the chamber. We were done working for the day. Autumn decided to go home and take a nap, but I wanted to eat dinner before leaving, so we parted ways. I grabbed some food and sat down by myself.

Before long, my roommate and Moonbeam joined me. My roommate told stories about working in the union and his high school football days. I just sipped apple juice and kept to myself. He got up at one point to grab seconds, and Moonbeam asked something about dreams. I didn't quite catch it. My roommate came back before I could clarify what she meant. I was a little more interested at this point, and my roommate was interfering... So I put laxatives in his cake and waited patiently. He excused himself when his face paled.

"Be honest," asked Moonbeam, "did you do that to him?" We walked over to the drink machine. I couldn't decide whether I wanted more apple juice, water, or some kind of soda. I decided apple juice was probably best. "Get soda if you didn't do it!"

"Well, I'm not going to lie," I laughed. I filled up my glass with juice. I filled up a glass for Moonbeam, too, but she already had her own. We walked around to the other side of the cafeteria and found strawberries growing in a miniature garden. When Moonbeam pointed them out, I snatched one right out of the garden. It wasn't fully ready for consumption, but it was delicious nonetheless. One of the cafeteria workers got mad at me for eating the strawberries. She took us over to a giant watermelon tree. For some reason, the melon grew into slices, and it was enormous! She pulled down a watermelon slice the size of my body and asked Moonbeam if she wanted any.

"Use your fingers," the worker instructed. Moonbeam took a handful and stuffed it in her mouth. She smiled at me. We continued out of the cafeteria. On the way back to my dorm building, we started free running. I was sliding down railings on my shoes, running across walls, and jumping over anything in my path until I landed in front of a red robot with a computer monitor for a head. The screen said Minahpen - Nephanim backwards. Moonbeam's excitement with our free running dwindled.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's me from another world," I explained. "Stand back." A rift opened, sucking all three of us in. We landed on a deserted street in what looked like New York City. Most of the buildings were in ruin, and the sky was gray with storm clouds. I was surprised to find my roommate standing behind the robot. "Did you do this?" I asked him.

"Who else would have?" he laughed. "This is payback for what you did to me." I didn't feel any remorse. The robot charged at me and began singing a song. The appropriate background track played throughout the dreamscape. I caught the robot's fist and leaped backward, skidding past Moonbeam. Heeding my advice, she finally took refuge on the sidewalk. I made distance between me and my other self as soon as possible and summoned Axis' gauntlets to my hands. This wasn't a job for Apheri... I wanted to punch myself into the ground.

Lyrics appeared in my field of vision. I stared at the yellow-framed bubble letters in disbelief.

"You want me to sing?" I laughed. Every word I missed made my robot opponent stronger. I sighed and swallowed to clear my throat. The words were in Japanese, so I was even less confident about singing them, but I knew I could do it. As my robot self sprinted forward again, I brought back my fist, charging up my punch with power. I released it just as my portion of the song ended and my robot self reached the limit of my range. He tumbled backward, rolling on the ground until he crashed into a rusty car parked in the road. Moonbeam cheered and applauded me.

"Way to go, Nephanim!" she shouted with her hands cupped around her mouth. I felt strangely empowered. This was my element. I didn't understand why, but I was more powerful than I ever imagined. I clenched my fists and charged after my robot self. Spears of blue light struck the street, but I was too fast for them to hit me. I leaped into the air just before I reached the car and punched the robot in his monitor just as he started to get up. The rusty car slid backward from his second impact.

I woke up halfway, and for a time, I was lying in bed while standing on the deserted street. I turned to look at Moonbeam.

"This is... a dream," I realized. I could feel my body in bed, but I hadn't left the dream yet. "Moonbeam!" I shouted. "I'll see you again!" She and I shared a smile as I fully awakened.