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((this is backdated to just after the end of meta))

The nightmares had become such a familiar occurrence that Arian was beginning to forget what it was like to get a normal night's sleep. Had started to resign himself to the fact that when he finally and reluctantly turned in for the night that his dreams would be of his loved ones dead and a pillar made up of roaring darkness swallowing up all before it as it rushed towards him.

He was not expecting the dreams to change.

Or to hear his cousin screaming at him to take Liryn and run, even as the Nega-Agent's weapon cut her down.

There were other images too, but the single most vivid image he had as he sat up wide-eyed and disorientated at surroundings that were suddenly unfamiliar was of Saffy moving to impede an unfamiliar General as she yelled at him to run and the red of her blood as she was struck down.

It had unnerved him enough that after it had finally managed to sink in that he was in fact at home in his bedroom and more to the point was supposed to be in his bedroom and not in the woods, he had fumbled around until he had found his mobile and put a call through to his cousin and getting increasingly panicked as the phone rang without answer.

Eventually however she had finally picked up and asked him nastily if he knew what the freaking time was, but he had been so relieved to hear her voice, so relieved that she was there on the other end of the line and alive and maybe she had heard something in his voice as he spoke to her, trying to keep his voice quiet so as not to disturb Orah and Liam, because her voice had eventually softened.

He had rang off with a promise to have tea with her soon, Saffy getting the last word in as she told him to try not to call so freaking early next time as she hung up and still awake he had padded across to the kitchen and had rummaged around until he found the hot chocolate, pulling out a pot, adding milk and putting it on so he could make up some hot chocolate the old fashioned way, rummaging around until he found some of the cookies that he had made the previous evening as he waited for the milk to heat through.

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Liryn woke to find himself lying in the cradle at the top of the cat tree that Arian had bought for the apartment.

His fur rising and his small body trembling as image upon image assaulted him.

Arian and Saffron.

Arian without glasses.

Athene carrying him to safety and Saffron's screams.

The PSSG - the team he had chosen to protect - his team breaking.

Ida, Tsui and Athene and a burning camp.

A curly-haired super senshi and ginger-furred mauvian.

A pale, but determined-looking Athene with his hair hacked short.

The nasty corrupt - the one that had once dared to steal Athene's starseed, memories painting her as something foul, the 'how' fuzzy even if the feelings were not.

And a promise to himself to make things right.

One by one the memories smashed into him, until eventually he could bear it no longer - he had to see - had to know.

Arian's room was empty and for a moment all he could do was stare at the empty bed with panicked purplish until his ears picked up sounds coming from the apartment kitchen and the smells of cookies and sugar and chocolate. The kitchen was only across the way and no distance at all at trotting pace and on peeking in Liryn could see Arian stirring something in a pan, his hair - his long hair - in its usual braid and messy from sleep. However whilst Liryn would normal have stayed to talk, he was a kitty on a mission and although the other two members of his team were beyonf checking reach for now - there was one other member who was in reach and could be checked on.

He padded towards Orah's room and sat outside the door, not making any effort to be quiet as as he called out "Orah. Orah!" His voice was a mixture of mewl and panicked concern. "Orah are you in there?!"

He could hear sounds, which would logically suggest that the other team member of the PSSG was indeed in her room, but Liryn was kind of beyond logic, the little bobtail not really thinking at all - all he wanted to do was see his team and see for himself that they were safe.

Liam Dauber just sat there on his bed, legs pulled to his chest, arms hugging said legs, and chin resting on his knees. How long had be been awake? Had he ever even slept? He didn't remember sleeping. He didn't remember getting into bed. He didn't even remember coming home to his dark and empty room, but that was likely because he hadn't left said room to remember ever walking in.

There was a lot he couldn't remember. That was why he was here, wasn't he? Liam had forgotten things. No, Vespa had, back when he had another life, a life that he was willing to sacrifice in order to change sides. He dug deep but remembered nothing of Liam Dauber before that fateful night, as though he had never truly existed before then. Vespa did, and it was Vespa he saw in his visions. Except he had changed. There were cracks and fissures all over his body and he wore a mask over his mouth, all to help him breathe.

The visual differences weren't the ones that kept Liam up all night, though. Yes, they painted a terrifying image, but there were nothing compared to the actions this Vespa took. He was cold, lifeless, lived for nothing but the commands of senior officers and basking in Queen Metallia's glory. This Vespa had done terrible things, things that Liam... could never forget. Things so horrifying and gut wrenching that he found himself... relieved, when the last fleeting images of this Vespa that could have been was engulfed in flames, writhing in pain from not only hellfire by a swarm of his own wasps. He had died during an attack, and no one mourned for him. Not even Metallia.

Liam certainly didn't. He was dead. The monster was dead. But the monster hadn't died in that vision, in the future that could have been... but instead, the monster had died in the present. Or, rather, in the past. Liam had spent hours thinking about where this monster was born, and the only thing he could come up with was that he was born when Mica dragged him back that fateful night... where Liam Dauber was born.

In the future, there was no Liam, only Vespa. Forever Vespa. But the fact that Mica had failed, that Mica had been dragged away and suffered from a life threatening injury... was enough to confirm the believe that the future he saw was a future that would never, ever be. Mica was dead, for all he knew, and Liam told himself that he would just as soon die by his own hands than ever allow himself to become a part of their cesspool of lies and deceit again.

That future would never be. At least... not for him.

He heard movement from the other rooms, but Liam remained as he were. He was curious about which of his roommates would have been up and about this hour, but he was too afraid to check. For now, he simply kept his ears turned to the door... and waited. Maybe they had the same horrific visions as he did and they were coming out to discuss it?

The grief in the little voice was enough to pull Orah out of her panic, at least enough to function. She had had years of practice in continuing to work, whatever her own mental state. Soothing sounds came from her as the young woman stroked the trembling little body, blinking back her own tears so she could be strong when he needed it.

"Shh... It's my fault, not yours. You did your best, more than anyone could expect of a Mauvian. I should have done more... Taken the good advice of the people I trusted." Liryn was here... Arian was here... But where was here? There were still so many questions. When she looked up for her friend, Orah's face was haunted.

"Arian, what's going on? We were on the stage... I felt the sword... And then suddenly we're here. How...? I thought I was dead..." Was this some sort of Negaverse trick? But why try to kill her and then, to all appearances, heal her and put her in her old apartment. Everything looked how she remembered it... down to the last detail. Slender brown hands stroked the guardian in her arms, finding comfort in cuddling him and easing his worry.

The young woman shook her head gently as she cuddled the Mauvian to her chest, her fingers running from the crown of his head to the base of his tail in long, soothing strokes.

"It was outside of your control, sweet heart." She said as she bent to rub her cheek against the top of his head. "There wasn't anything more you could have done. You tried as hard as you could, right until the end, and that is what matters."

When she lifted her face again, it was to give Arian a confused look, her brows drawn together.

"You don't remember the stage? Arian, we died, remember? After the ambush on Head Quarters, we organized a return attack... when it failed, they captured those of us left and executed us on a stage in front of a crowd... They televised it, I saw the cameras! You were behind me in line..." None of this made any sort of sense. She had died... but she wasn't dead. If these two of her friends weren't dead, did... did that mean everyone was alive.

Reaching out, Orah gripped Arian's hand in hers and gave it a squeeze before she rolled onto her knees. Pushing to her feet, she carried Liryn back to her bedroom to retrieve her cell phone, returning to the kitchen with it. The guardian was cradled against her chest as she used the old, familiar cell to call an old, familiar number... holding it to her ear as ringing buzzed from the speaker. When her father's voice came over the line, heavy with sleep, she choked on a sob, her arm tightening around Liryn's middle.

"Da? Oh, no... nothing's wrong. I just... had a bad dream and I wanted to hear your voice." She said as tears gathered in her eyes. They spilled over to run down her face as she spoke to the man she had not seen in years, who's death had so shattered her small family. "Yeah, I'm okay, everything's fine. It was just a dream. Yeah, I'm going to be okay... just hearing you helped. Yeah. Okay, Da. I'm sorry I woke you up. Sleep well, Da, I love you too."

Thumbing the end call button, Orah slowly set the phone back down and returned her hand to stroking the guardian.

"My Da's alive... we're alive... I think... I think everyone is back." She said softly. "Arian... what day is it?"

Liam felt like a creeper, but perhaps it was an appropriate feeling, all things considered. After all, he was sitting on the ground of his room in the shared apartment, with his ear to the door, listening to the conversation going on outside his room. It was clear that his roommates were distressed, and he didn't think ill of any of them. He felt quite distressed himself!

He had hoped it was just him, but that clearly wasn't the case. Each of them seemed to have suffered some kind of shared illusion, or nightmare, or something, and while different, each one told a terrifying story that seemed to tie into one another, weaving around one another but holding a consistent truth. What they had seen... what that had been seeing in the past few weeks, seemed to be something more than a collective nightmare.

"A future, maybe..." He muttered to himself. He heard Ida mention a stage, and he remembered it as well, but his memory of it was quite different. Terrifyingly so! He was on the stage, but in the back, watching the White Moon and Knights be put to death. And he felt nothing. He didn't even feel alive, but he knew he was. He remembered various things, but most of them were fights. Fights against the White Moon. He resisted the urge to power up, to remind himself that the nightmare was over, but he refrained. He wasn't sure how long, but he held it back. He had to trust that it wasn't real, or that it wouldn't be real... he pushed himself to his feet and finally opened the door to leave his room, hoping that he wouldn't make matters even worse. Orah asked about what day it was, and he couldn't stop himself. He didn't know what, but he could not fight the urge to want to say "Christmas day".

He said it, but softly. He wasn't sure if they'd hear him. Maybe it was the best they didn't hear him, he thought, and he couldn't help but blush when he caught them hugging. He glanced away, wondering if it was too late to retreat into the room. He was going to say something stupid, he just knew it. Might as well get it out of the way now. "It's like a weird sci-fi movie... except weirder. And worse."

The nightmare that Orah described sounded horrible, but it was the horror of hearing about atrocities being carried out else where rather than the horror of something directly experienced. Because her words hadn't sparked any recognition. Not the capture, not the stage or even what been their eventual fate - what she was describing, what she had seen - he didn't remember any of it.

And he tried, tried very hard as Orah walked by him and into the kitchen with Liryn still in her arms, because if Orah had seen him there as vividly as she had then surely he should be able to remember something... Anything.

There was nothing - nothing beyond the three things from his dreams.

There was voice behind him saying something about Christmas day and he turned startled, startlement turning to awkwardness as he recognised the third member of their household - well the third human member at any rate.

"Liam, did we wake you?" He said awkwardly and then felt even more awkward as at the same time he heard Orah ask their blond house mate if he'd had dreams too.

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Hearing Orah's words had been equally horrible for Liryn, because it was another indicator for all her words of just how much he had failed.

He had never seen the stage, he hadn't lived past the ambush - Atë had taken care of that - and even though with his death he had stopped the corrupted eternal from taking what she wanted one last time, he hadn't been able to save the shattered pieces of his team and he hadn't been able to stop the Negaverse.

I love you... I love you and Ida and Tsui and Chaonis.

They had been his last words to Athene and he had been in too much pain to speak them, but if he was here and Ida was here Athene was here then surely Tsui and Chaonis were too - which meant that he still had a chance - the chance to do things right this time round.

He could hear Liam, both Arian and Orah speaking to the blond but his attention wasn't really on what they were saying.

Because even with them all awake he could still smell burning.

It took a good few moments for him to sort dream from now and realise that the smell was in real time and not some lingering remnant of nightmare, but once he had he nudged at Orah with his head his voice quiet and directed at her, Arian and Liam three as he said "Do you smell burning?"