Dreaming Darkly

The bed was too small.

That was all he could think of as he laid down with his feet dangling over the end of the mattress. The room was in many ways more like a cell than the room he had been comatose in for so long but the door was not locked and the only thing coursing through his veins was an epic case of restlessness.

"Can't... sleep..."

His skin still tingled from where Kalinda touched his shoulder. There was a flush that came over him whenever he remembered her voice but that wasn't what was keeping him up tonight. His insomnia was the result of the brief moments of sleep that occurred when his head first hit the pillow.

Almost instantly, his exhaustion faded and he was deep in his memories, caught in a terrible dream from the darkest day of his past. He was not in the Arachnos base any longer, no longer a fugitive from the law he used to uphold.

No, he was no longer the villain he had become. He was the hero he used to be, trapped beneath the earth, living the last day of his free life....

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The walls of the cavern resounded with the roar of some distant beast. Nightravyn hovered back, moved by the sheer force of the sound. Before he could react more, the feel of a strong hand on his armored shoulder stopped him short.

"Don't fear, Ravyn. There's nothing we can't handle."

The voice belonged to Bulwark, the Vigilant's immovable object. Affectionately called their juggernaut, Bulwark had been through basically everything and emerged unscathed. In fact, no one on the team had ever seen anything hurt him.

Until today, that was. He was still smiling, as he always did, but one side of his face was a spreading bruise and his chin was lined with the steady trickle of blood flowing down from the edge of his split lips. His uniform, normally plated in sections of tungsten alloy and polished mirror bright, was now torn and burned in several places.

He blushed, nodding. "I'm sorry. The sound was just..." He couldn't explain his reaction but he'd been trying to flee the entire time they'd been in these tunnels. There was something about the noise. Something primal... The minions of this beast had been far more of a challenge than they'd expected. Bulwark was barely walking, Tesla was so drained his hair was laying flat and Anthem...

He spared her a quick glance, wincing at her condition. She was still clinging to the crutch he'd made out of one of the salamander's spears. Her right leg looked terrible, broken in at least places and the bandages across her chest were turning red again. The pink froth across her normally flawless lips told him what he hated to admit; she had a hole in her lung. A bad one.

Anthem smiled at him, seeing his concern. "I'll be all right, beloved. As long as I can sing, I can protect us all." He knew she was right. Her power was in her voice. Sonic force could be shaped by her immaculate skill into walls, barriers, even blasts of body-shattering force.

He forced himself to return the smile, ignoring the sneer from Tesla as he had done so often in the past. Tesla was such a malcontent he couldn't even appreciate a moment's tenderness between a husband and wife. Nightrayvn reached out, stroked away a few flecks of light red off his lover's cheek and then turned back to the group.

"Bulwark's right. We can do this. There's nothing that can stand against us if we are united in aim. This creature and its minions have already done terrible things to the world we have fought so hard to protect." Ravyn straightened up, pushing his own pain out of his mind.

"Do we have a plan?" Tesla almost seemed bored. His hyper-kinetic system moved so fast he didn't have much of an attention span for things moving slower than the speed of sound.

Nightravyn nodded, charging up the deflection field of his armor to full power. "We have to keep moving. My neutrino scan shows a major cyst up ahead and a vast organic presence in it. We aren't far from our goal. We can't turn back and we can't stay here much longer."

Bulwark grinned as best his wounded face allowed. "Oh yeah! Fight time is the right time." He smashed one meaty fist into the other titanic palm. "Let's do some damage!"

And with that, Rayvn turned and lead them in the charge...

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Bloodravyn stared at the ceiling, his dream ending there. He knew what happened next, could see it every time he closed his eyes. Could hear it every time the room grew silent. His only peace was when the room echoed with the whine of turbines from the base's many combat hovercraft coming and going.

The thin slits in the black enamelled walls kept casting moving lines of line across his bed. Bloodravyn had to wonder how anyone managed to sleep in this place...

..and secretly, he was grateful he couldn't.