Hyu's Adventures

I stand in the middle of the platform, with the gate in front of me and Silver, Yuya and Shinave behind me.
I hold out my left hand against the gate, and give it a slight burst of energy.
Some engravings on it light up. I focus on the templars, and sure enough a connection is made to a gate right next to them.
A portal forms inside the gate in a dark purple color.
The doors are open, they can simply walk in now.
I'm nervous.



After a rather tense minute, some shapes finally emerge from the portal. Templars.
All 12 of them. This is it.
They all appear to be rather calm.
Then again, why wouldn't they? It's not like we'd stand a chance in a fair fight.

Finally, one of them addresses me. And to my surprise he looks somewhat different than the other templars.
He isn't wearing a helm, and his weapon of choice seems to be a sword rather than a lance.
How curious. Do the templars have some sort of leader after all?

"Oh dragon... It's unfortunate that you have resisted your death for this long."
"But I see you have finally seen the light."
"I respect that you stand here, offering to sacrifice yourself in exchange for the life of your friends."
"It is not an action that I would have expected from a dragon."

Oh.
That assumption sort of makes sense I guess.
The thought that we would fight them is pure insanity, yet I've shown them exactly where we are.

"Unfortunately the deal is not acceptable."

He points at Yuya.

"I'll need the life of the water goddess as well."
"Both of your lives for Teraluna. We have no interest in the others."
"Come forward and kneel down."

He wants to see the look on my face when he executes her in front of my eyes.
Typical Templar reasoning. They want a show. After all they could just charge at us and kill us all.
I turn around to look at Yuya. She's not worried at all. In fact she grins. Good.
I look back at the templar.
I stare deeply into his eyes and lough out loudly, which confuses him to some extend.
Finally the feeling of eeriness goes away.
No more anxiety. No more worries.
There is only the present now. No future to worry about.

I nod at Silver to give him the signal to activate the seal.
The symbols he has drawn on the ground grow all over the platform.



A transparent bubble surrounds all of us.
The portal generated by the gate collapses immediately, because as of right now, both gates no longer exist in the same space time continuum.
Everything within the bubble is separated from normal space and time, at least for as long as Silver keeps it up.
Nothing comes in, nothing goes out.
As far as I know, it is the ultimate spatial sealing technique. I've never seen anyone use it before.
Still, the templars do not seem alarmed. After all there's 12 of them and only 4 of us.

"And now what little dragon?"

There is complete silence now. Sound doesn't penetrate the seal.
I speak in a dark, assertive voice.

"Why, isn't it obvious?"
"I am going to kill you all"

That made him angry. He snaps his fingers and 2 templars charge at me immediately.
This is it then. This is what I've gambled everything on. Work!
Phoenix catalyst. Only once before have I drawn power directly from it, instead of using it as a catalyst to amplify my own powers.
It was when I resurrected Yuya. But of course that used up the entire catalyst. There is nothing left.
But I do use the same technique in the hopes of having understood what the orb that was given to me is.
Even though it was just an intuition. But right now, that is all I have.

The templars that charge at me do not have their lances drawn. Their goal is to push me to my knees. To put me in place.
To teach me a lesson. But I have other ideas. I propel myself forwards and slap my hands against their breastplates.
I use the technique and draw energy as hard as I can and concentrate it within my hands.

I feel some resistance. But it's like slapping your hands against a water surface. It hurts a little initially, but your hands still move straight through.
Through their breastplates. Through the bodies. I'm going straight through with my bare hands.
The lifeless remains of their bodies drop to the ground. They are not human bodies. There is no blood. It's like some sort of clay surrounded with skin.

It worked... It worked!
I can freely draw energy from the orb. My intuition was right. It is the same type of energy.
But I have no time to think about this any further.
Because the templars have now realized the danger, and 3 of them have already rushed past me towards Silver.
They want to destroy the seal, in case they need to retreat.
But Yuya is on it.
She is projecting some of her water spheres towards them.
Right before impact Shinave casts some kind of frost magic onto them, causing the spheres to erupt into ice spikes.
They are not strong enough to penetrate the armor of the templars, but they do manage to immobilize them for a moment.



I draw energy again, focus it into 3 small spheres and toss them at the templars.
Yet again, their bodies shatter on impact. They won't be able to get to Silver without dealing with me first.
Too late I realize that this is exactly what they're doing.
A lance hits me right in the stomach. I manage to blink away before by body suffers the full impact.
Another Templar is already striking me from another side.
I block his lance with my hands and give it a pulse of energy, breaking the lance in half.
I promtly throw the gained head of the lance at the Templar who previously managed to hit me in the stomach.
The lance shatters into pieces as I try to infuse it with energy, but enough of it discharges into the Templar to incapacitate him.
A few energy infused punches take care of the Templar with the broken lance.

To my surprise the remaining templars have not moved towards me at all.
4 of them stand there, emotionless, in front of their leader who is in anger.
I don't think he fully understands what just happened. 7 down, 5 to go.
And although only one of the templars displays any emotions, I don't notice an ounce of fear.

"Do you really think you can kill us all?"

I respond with an evil smile and draw my katana from its scabbard on my back.
That's right, I've been fighting you with my bare hands.

"Fine."

Some sort of growth on the leaders left arm becomes visible. It looks somewhat organic and insectoid.
Extensions reach from it to the necks of each of the templers bodies, all 11 of them.
With a motion of his left hand, the extensions retract back into his arm and all remaining templars drop dead.
All Templar bodies slowly begin to turn into something that resembles sawdust.
Suddenly, an immense amount of pressure originating from the remaining templars aura pushes against me.
I have to concentrate a small layer of energy around my body to protect it from burning up.

So much raw power. So this is why the templars were always so emotionless and their bodies so unnatural.
They were puppets controlled by this single person.
He confidently draws his own sword and begins walking towards me slowly.

"You have caused me grief, dragon. These are rather difficult to create you know."
"They have to be captured when they are but little children, then carefully raised into weapons."
"It takes such a long time, and now I have to do it all over again."

Even though right now, I have a virtually unlimited supply of energy, I am afraid of this guy.
Being in possession of this orb thing, but he is radiating so much energy naturally.

Here he comes. I draw huge amounts of energy into my katana, hoping to power through his sword.
But he merely deflects my attack, I do not manage to release the energy. This goes on for a few strikes.
Each time our swords clash he deflects it skillfully. He has the upper hand.
Then unexpectedly he charges in close, even though I haven't given him an opening.
Somehow he manages to get his blade uncomfortably close to my face and I have to blink back.

I quickly realize that I've been somewhat late. He managed to leave a small cut between my eyes.
A few more centimeters and that would have been it...

"Hmm. How odd."
"Clearly you have the energy to fight me, but you are not good enough of a swordsman to do so."
"I wonder. Years ago, you fought a Templar in the depths of hell. A fight where none of you had access to energy."
"A fight against someone who had perfected the art of sword combat."
"You do not have the skills necessary to have won that fight."

He is right. I should not have been able to do that. It is something I cannot explain.
It just happened, even though it should have been impossible.
And I can feel that this guy uses similar moves. If he hasn't perfected the art of sword combat, he is close.
I am no match for him. I cannot win in a sword fight. And the only way to discharge enough energy to deal damage to him
is through my katana.

"Also I wonder. Where does all of that energy suddenly come from?"
"You have done something rather curious indeed."

He charges at me a few more times. Fortunately I manage to deflect his attacks, but it is very close.
He just has to wait until I make a small mistake.

"And the dragon does not use his dragon powers."
"Instead he fights me with what seems to be divine energy."

I can't use it because both powers clash with each-other. It would rip me apart.
But he doesn't need to know that.
He attacks a few more times, and manages a few deep cuts into both of my shoulders and my back.

"Your time is slowly running out dragon."
"Not only will your body give in sooner or later, but that white haired friend of yours isn't going to last much longer keeping that seal up either."

Silver... He doesn't even know the proper reason he is keeping that seal up for, yet he is still giving it all hes got.
Hold out a little longer... I'll figure something out...

The templar performs a downwards strike over his shoulder, which I attempt to block directly.
He somehow angles his body in such a way that he is able to rotate around and punch me in the chest.
Even though I concentrate most of my energy into my ribs to absorb the shock, they still buckle a little under a loud crushing noise as I'm projected backwards.
I cough up some blood, but I manage to keep by defensive posture.

Due to the lung damage I decide to stop breathing entirely, and instead filter the CO2 in my blood using energy.
An easy technique, usually used to go to locations where breathing is not possible, such as underwater or planets without oxygen rich atmospheres.
I quickly repair potentially lethal damage using a variety of phoenix techniques.
My body is taking one hell of a beating, it won't last much longer.

"It is a shame that I have not found you when you were a child."
"You have so much potential, you would have made a fantastic asset."

Right as he readies another attack, something startles him to the point that he looses his focus on me.
I can feel a new presence. A dark, cold one. I look for it and spot a person that must have just appeared.
This is not possible... Nobody can enter this space as long as it is sealed. There are no tricks or techniques to circumvent interdimensional seals.
He immediately looks right at me and pronounces in a loud voice:

"Death has come for you."

As he summons an oversized pitch black scythe I understand what has happened.

"Silver, break the seal... It is no longer of any use."

The bubble surrounding the platform dissipates. Silver has to lie down from exhaustion.
Yuya and Shinave look rather worried. They know what it means when death comes for you.
He looks like a teenager. Somewhat long, black fuzzy hair. Worn and slightly torn black pants and shirt.
He's very skinny. But the scythe is what really makes it clear what he is. Death. Or a messenger of death.
I don't know the specifics behind how it works.

I try to utter the words "Not today". Because that is what you say when death comes for you.
But my voice is faint and fragile. It's not even because of the damaged lungs.
He is amused by this and laughs.

"Good one! I haven't heard that one yet. You may have just made my day."
"Seriously though, you're coming with me."

The grip on my katana loosens. I have fucked up.
This is the end. It's because I took the orb.
This orb, I don't know what exactly it is, or why it exists. All I know is that it has to do with life energy.
It plays a role in the birth of things. This is also the reason why I was able to draw power from it. It's the same type of energy as in the phoenix catalyst.
Because they are so important, each orb is assigned a guardian, so that no individual can ever obtain one.
Ironically, it is one of the guardians who gave me the orb. And she warned me that death would come for me.
I am not sure why she decided to give it to me, but I understand that I must now pay the price for having taken it.
Death acts as some sort of backup protection in case an orb is ever stolen.

In a moment of desperation I ask:

"... a minute then?"

Death looks at me a little surprised. Why would he ever agree to that? What am I even doing with another minute?
He made it clear that he is here to get me now. He looks at the templar, then back at me.
Then he shrugs.

"A minute it is."

And he sits down.
What?
Just like that?
He is completely carefree, as if he was about to grab some popcorn.

The templar laughs, realizing that he has already won.

"You fool! All I care about is your death, nothing else matters to me."
"You have just lost everything."

I know. The guardian told me.
For a moment I believed that Silvers seal would make me invisible to death, and I could use the orb without being spotted.
In retrospect, that was a rather idiotic assumption. But it is too late for remorse now.
Not like I had any alternatives anyways.
But before I go, there is one thing left to do...
Forget about the future, it is no more. There is only the present now.

"You asked me earlier how I managed to kill a man who had perfected the art of sword combat."

My voice has recovered some strength.

"Yes, I am curious about that indeed."

I remove the protective layer of aura surrounding my body and focus all of it into my katana.
Immediately I feel the pressure of the templars aura on my skin. It burns away my clothes and slowly begins to eat away at my skin.
Energy distribution in your body is a key aspect in advanced combat techniques. You can divert energy that is intended to defend your body into your attacks and vice versa.
Removing too much defensive energy leaves you without any defense.
But it's not like I have any need for that anymore.

"I admire your will, but you do not have the technique to beat me."

Yes. He can just deflect my attacks.
I open my dragon eyes, which is of course a rather self-destructing thing to do, given that my body is flooded with divine energy, which will immediately attack the dragon eyes
which are of demonic nature. I don't care.
I understand the confused look on the templars face, as the dragon eyes do not work on them.
But they are not intended for him.
I look for my own reflection in his eyes, and attempt to stare directly into my own dragon eyes.
This is something you are never supposed to do.
There is a high risk of getting lost forever.

I do it to look into my past.
Into the exact moment I fought that templar in the fires of hell.
I was but a young teenager back then. I can see it clearly now.
I walk towards the templar whilst looking at my memories at the same time.

"Back then, I had only a minute to kill the master swordman."
"And now you have a minute to do the same with me."
"I will show you exactly how I defeated him."

I begin to mimic the movements of the templar I fought against years ago.
Our swords spray sparks every time they touch. At this point it looks more like a dance than a sword fight.
He quickly realizes that he no longer has the upper hand. We are on equal terms now, and I have nothing to loose.
He changes to a more defensive style, attempting to simply outlast the minute that was given to me.
Fortunately, I require so much focus that I am completely incapable to think about what is going to happen next.
Sure enough, just before the minute runs out, I perform a combination of moves that creates an opening.
I take it without hesitation and lodge my katana firmly into his chest.

The burning sensation and the pressure emitted by the templar stops immediately.
He is visibly confused. He does not understand the mistake he made, and neither do I.
This style of combat is way too advanced for me. I merely copied what I saw.
But still, even with my sword lodged in his chest he smiles.

"It doesn't matter. I still won."

I have nothing witty to reply. He is right. His goal was that I die, and he achieved that, after all death has come for me.
I have lost. I release the energy stored within the katana and the templar bursts up in purple flames, leaving nothing behind.
I suppose this should provide some sort of relief. At least the templars are gone.
But I feel no such thing. All I feel is failure.



Death approaches me, carrying his scythe on his shoulder.
This is the end.

Recently some of the abilities I can confidently use in lucid dreams have appeared in my non-lucid dreams.
I occasionally find myself using them without thinking or realizing that I am in fact dreaming.
The most common ones I use are "Fire" and "dragon eyes".
They're both abilities I associate with dragonic powers in my lucid dreams.
Creating and manipulating fire is rather straightforward, using the dragon eyes not so much.
If a DC looks into my eyes whilst I have the "dragon eyes" open, I can order the DC to perform any action and he will obey.
This works with most DC's, except those who seem unnaturally strong. (those who present themselves as other dreamers or other conscious entities)


I'm at university, attending some kind of lecture.
The dean enters the classroom and asks if I can come with him.
This doesn't really surprise me, I sometimes help the school with some stuff, I assume it's about something related to that.
I get up and follow him.
He opens his office. There's 3 men inside wearing suits... weird.
He closes the door without entering.

"Mr. Zimmer?"
"Yes? Can I help you?"
"Indeed you can, we're from the FBI."
"Oh? What brings you to Germany?"
"You do, Mr. Zimmer... Or should I call you 'Hyu'?"

I'm confused and feel horribly uncomfortable, as if I had committed some sort of crime.
But I know I have not. Yet I am Hyu, but how do they know? It's the nickname I use on the internet, is this related to some of my online activities?
It's the Fbi, they have no jurisdiction here.
I try to remain calm.

"Mr. Zimmer is fine. Please explain yourself, what do you want from me?"
"We want you to come with us."
"I'm afraid I'll need an explanation before I'm going anywhere, you have no jurisdiction here."
"Indeed, we do not."

The agent pulls out a gun and points it at my chest.
I freak out as he pulls the trigger and I feel the pain of something penetrating my skin.
What the heck? This wasn't a bullet! He shot me with a tranq gun.
My body goes numb and I fall to the ground...


... I regain consciousness. It's cold...
The room I'm in is dark and moist.
I'm wearing nothing but underpants, and I am constrained on a metal chair.
The metal is really cold... and it reeks. I'm scared.
I try to move my arms, but I can barely move them a few millimeters.
They are chained to the chair at multiple locations.
I start panicking and try to pull myself loose.

But I quickly understand that there is no way that is going to happen.
My legs are chained in the same way my arms are, there are multiple belts as well, keeping my body constrained to the chair.
The system is so solid and complex that I can't even turn my head.
Fuck!

I try to calm down. I need to think.

Someone enters the room... he's wearing a doctors outfit... it's full of blood stains... fuck fuck fuck.
He studies a chart and then approaches me.
He turns on a spotlight attached to his headband, which blinds me.

"Who are you???"
"..."
"Where am I?!"
"..."

He doesn't give a shit and completely ignores me.
At first I think that he'll inject me with a huge syringe, but he actually proceeds to drain blood from my left arm.
He's fucking disgusting. He smells horribly, as if he hasn't showered for weeks, and he doesn't look any better than he smells.

Fuck this!

I try to channel energy in order to set him on fire... but it fails miserably.
Red lights on bracelets on my arms start flashing... and that's it... nothing happens. There is no fire.
I realize the bracelets have tubes that feed into my arms... what the fuck?

"Heh. Stupid shit. You're not going to use fire magic for a long time."
"Guard! We're taking him with us. I want him to see something..."

A guard enters the room and unlocks some of the chains.
He then forces me to stand up and follow the doctor.
The chains around my body are still massive. It's a complex setup of massive steel locks.
The whole apparatus is heavy, I have a hard time walking with all the weight I have to carry.
There's no way I'll be able to resist.

I am brought into a room similar to the one I was held in.
There's 2 prisoners inside.
A girl and a guy, both about my age.
I quickly realize that the girl is dead.
It looks like she died of blood loss, which she lost through her eyes.
How horrible!

The guy seems quite scared. He looks at me, and I can see the desperation in his eyes.
He knows he is going to die.

The doctor approaches him. He is going to inject him with the blood he's taken from me... why?

"They're going to kill me... just like they killed the girl."
"Your blood killed her."

The doctor intervenes: "Shut your mouth."
But knowing what's going to happen to him, he doesn't care.

"If there's anything you can do... do it."
"They will torture you until they find a way to extract your abilities... and after that they'll have no more use for you."

Fuck... if this is true... I have to act now... but how? I can't do shit with these bracelets.
The doctor gets ready to insert the needle into his arm.
I can feel the adrenaline pumping...

...

The bracelets... they prevent me from using fire...

"Hey doc!"
"Shut it!"
"You know, this is not going to work, you can't transmit the fire genes like that..."

I'm pulling this out of my ass... I just need him to look me in the eyes before he performs the injection.
Maybe they don't know what I can do if someone looks into my eyes, maybe they only know about the fire.

"... Those tricks are not going to work. Don't waste my time."
"Don't inject him and I'll tell you how to transfer my powers..."
"... I've actually got them from someone else, I wasn't born with them."

This is never going to work...
He turns around and looks at me.
Or maybe it will?

"Bullshit!"
"Look me in the eyes, do I look like I'm lying to you? My fucking life is on the line."

And he does.
Got you!

I open the dragon eyes and stare right into his soul.
I can see every bit of evil inside of him. What a disgusting and horrible person.
He tries to resist, so I push it.
His eyes turn bloody... he won't be able to take this for long.
I need to hurry up.
I order him with my mind.

"Undo the bracelets!"

He approaches me like a puppet and begins deactivating the bracelets.
The guard notices and freaks out, yelling at the doctor to stop.
But he doesn't... he can't even hear the guard, he can only hear the overwhelming voice of my mind.
The guard pulls out his gun, but it's too late.
The bracelets are off.

The concentrated fire bullet I just launched at him hits him in the head and splits his skull.
He drops to the ground dead.

"PLEASE! Help me! I can get us out!"
"I know the way, and I can open the doors."

I don't have a choice, I have no idea where I am.
He's wearing bracelets as well.
I concentrate some fire onto them and they stop working.
He closes his eyes and all the locks on his and my constraints unlock at once.

"I control electricity. I can control most electrical devices."
"That's useful..."

I spot a small red led at the top of the room... fuck... a camera.

"We need to get out. Now!"

He gets up and we start running.
The corridor outside the cell leads straight to a big steel security door.
He opens it with his ability. It starts lifting upwards.

But behind it, a whole armed task force is waiting for us.
In panic, I prepare to set them all on fire, but it seems my new buddy got this.
With a simple hand motion, he creates an electromagnetic field dragging all their equipment towards the ground.
The belts of their machine guns prevent them from getting back up and we just run past them.

This guy is amazing. He locks all doors around us, except for the ones we need to escape.
We encounter little resistance on our way out since everyone is locked in other rooms.
Finally we reach an elevator and get inside.

Apparently we're at level "-28" which is also the lowest level.
Where the fuck are we.
It goes all the way up to "0", which is where we are going.

The elevator doors open and we get out.
We're in a rather small room, with some sort of reception and a big steel door which presumably leads outside.
I can see a nuclear warning sign on it... I see. We are in an old nuclear bunker.
A girl working the reception freaks out once she spots us and grabs a phone.

"Do yourself a favor and don't bother..."

I feel more confident now that we're nearly out. I'm not really that scared anymore.
She drops the phone and puts her arms in the air.

"Good girl."

My new friends opens the door with a wave of his hand and the bright light from outside blinds me.
We step out, not seeing anything, but then my vision normalizes...

"Fuck..."
"Yes. I thought you knew how to get out?"
"We are out. But I had no idea where the fuck this facility actually was..."
"Well shit..."

We're in the middle of the desert.
You can see extremely far from where we are, but there's nothing to see but sand.
Never ending sand and the fucking door leading back into the nuclear bunker.

Armed forces stream out of the bunker pointing their machine guns at us.
There's a guy in a suit with them, presumably the leader of whatever is going on in the bunker.

... Hold on a second... I can teleport, can't I?
Or... wait... WHAT THE FUCK?

I'm angry... I'm properly mad.

"WHAT IS THIS SHIT?"

The guy I escaped with is confused.

"What?"
"THIS IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!"

I'm so pissed. How did I not notice.
I need to unleash some of this anger...
I approach the guy in the suit.

Everyone starts shooting at me, emptying their magazines, but the bullets just bounce off me.
What do they expect? I'm lucid, they can't do shit.

I grab the guy by his neck and lift him off the ground.

"If you meet my subconscious, kindly ask it: 'What the fuck?'"

I set him on fire. The flames are purple, and so strong that he immediately disintegrates, not even leaving behind any ashes.
In my anger I call out to Faye, associating her with my subconscious and thus as someone responsible for this nightmare.

"FAYE!"

She appears and immediately makes me a sign to let her say something first.

"I didn't do this Hyu. This is not my fault. It wasn't me."
"Then who did?"
"No one... nightmares don't work like that..."

I finally manage to calm down.
And then I realize something rather important.

"Sorry Faye... I didn't mean to be angry at you."
"And I get it now. This is actually a positive experience, not a negative one."
"Aha! How so?"
"If I had this same nightmare and I wasn't lucid dreaming, I wouldn't have been able to break free from it."
"The habits I've acquired in lucid dreams have helped me to escape from this nightmare, and from many others before."

She smiles in agreement.

I feel a lot better, somewhat refreshed actually.
Beating a nightmare feels good. I feel strong, like I have an ability that most people don't.
The dream fades away...