"Cain, wake up! Wake up! Today's the day!"
Groggy and dazed, Cain opened his eyes to Evette shaking him. Before he even had time to tell her to stop and let him sleep, she rolled him off the couch and onto the cold, hard floor.
'Argh...what the hell!'
Surrounded by junk food and gross leftovers, Cain used a single thought to make them puff into smoke. Then, he used another to magically lift himself back up.
"You've gotten good at using your imagination. You are ready." Rex was beside Evette, looking down at Cain.
Cain could have sworn he felt Rex looking at him with pride, but with that helmet for a head, he couldn't tell.
"Are you guys finally letting me hunt with you?!"
"You have trained well in the last few months, Cain. With that strange smoke of yours, you should do fine hunting with us. The rest are already down by the elevator. Get ready quickly."
Cain did as his captain said, showing off the true extent of his mind. He cleaned himself up, and his clothes changed to a lightweight battlesuit made of a strange fabric, layered with a moving silver-like metal that flowed across his body.
"I'm ready, let's go."
...
During Cain's stay with Rex's hunting crew, he was given Dream Pills galore. This is what allowed him to stay with them training all this time.
Dream Pills meant little to hunting crews; they weren't used for much except to stay in the Dream Realm and for services that required specialists, like making glass that didn't reflect Nightmares, for instance.
Cain wasn't a Dream Soldier yet but was close to it. One of his achievements was creating the moving metal around his battlesuit. It could move around the suit to protect different areas while also allowing full mobility due to its flexibility. The metal was liquid and would turn solid on command, making it an imaginative piece of art, not like it's already been done, but an achievement nonetheless.
Sadly, Cain wouldn't be able to meet two of the eight members of the hunting group; they died in a brutal ambush by a corrupt Nightmare a month or two prior. Now there were only six members, excluding Cain.
The remaining four members were all veterans of the lower levels. Unfortunately, they were all Dream Soldiers, unlike their captain.
First, there was Dalax, a skinny, lanky creature with six arms. He was more of a support and stayed a distance away, helping the group with communication and more technical things. He was a strange creature; his pigment could change at will, due to his imagination or otherwise, and his head looked more like an insect's yet still held human features. Truly bizarre.
Next, there was Vera; strangely enough, she was one of the Dreamfolk. Being born here, she didn't have the problem of boredom like other non-natives did. Instead, she fought Nightmares in hopes of giving a little back to her home for nurturing her.
Vera looked very much human, but she didn't bleed; instead, pinkish clouds came from her wounds. Being born of pinkish gas, such a malleable material allowed her to change her form with ease.
She acted as support as well, patching up team members and scouting by separating part of herself and sending it out.
The next member was a truly strange one. A literal disk, Arlen, was one of the damage dealers of the group. It used its body as a weapon, giving itself all sorts of enhancements and charging straight in.
It didn't speak much and could only communicate through writing or telepathy; it mostly only spoke with Rex.
Finally, there was Cessair, a young man like Cain or at least that's how he looked. He was actually an old friend of Evette and was close to her age, nearing 300. His role was also on the forefront, but he could also play farther back, creating a ranged weapon that Cain had never seen before, a massive strange needle that broke into thousands of fragments.
"Hey Cain, what's with that green thing on your head? Are you a variant human or something?"
Heading to their destination, Evette decided to strike up a conversation, showing her curiosity with the half-moon on Cain's head. She never asked before because training him was way more fun.
Of course, Cain was happy to oblige.
"Well, I suppose it's to show who's who. There is someone who looks just like me and has the other half."
"Oh, that's interesting. Is he the one you're hunting?"
"Yes..."
Rex slowed his pace and came beside Cain, "I forgot to tell you, when we get to the elevator, you'll have to put on equipment to protect yourself."
"What for?"
"In the lower levels, the air is filled with spores; we believe it to be from a massive Horror, but it doesn't change the fact we need the equipment. We use the equipment to breathe down there; otherwise, you can get infected and can turn into a shade."
"Makes sense, can I just create my own right now? I don't want someone else's old mask."
Evette chimed in, growing bored of only listening, "That's not how it works, dingus. To offset things like that, a specialist must be contracted to make equipment powerful enough to protect us. Your paltry imagination can't create the intricate details or even process them for that matter, to create a mask that protects us.
"Although the power of imagination is limitless, it's not all-powerful, and only Masters can create special equipment that truly works, and even then, it takes them centuries to perfect such a craft."
"Oh, if that's how it works, then it makes more sense. It's strange how everyone works for each other when we can just get things done without mind." Cain quipped.
Evette shook her head. "Not always; depending on the mood, these masters might request Dream Pills, even if it's worthless to them. Luckily we have an almost limitless amount of such pills."
Rex chimed in, "Enough; we are at the elevator; it's time to descend."
"Yes, Captain."
...
Deep in the lower levels, a quiet creature was traveling through strange buildings at a fast pace. Its skin was pure white, reflecting light even in such a dark place. Its hair was long, its silky dark locks fluttering behind it.
In nothing more than a thin silk robe, Cain was hunting for those who would be hunting him; he was now a Nightmare, after all.
After his transformation, he seemed to be able to hide the fact he was a Nightmare somewhat. One of the first things he realized about himself was that he was different from other Shades. Even so, he headed down below to explore his powers and new abilities.
Get acquainted with the territory as people say.
Another thing he realized, he didn't need to consume Dream Pills; he was now living off Dreams like a leech and only needed to consume the energy of Imagination to stay in this limitless realm.
Even as a Nightmare, he was still a native of reality, and thus it would always call out to him, pulling him back.
'Ah, this is so much better than going the Dream route! Much more resourceful; I don't have to imagine new things at all; all I do is twist others' imaginations! Much more convenient and it requires more cunning! Such a perfect fit for me, it's perfect for my style!'
As a Nightmare, Cain didn't need to imagine his own Dreams, though he could imagine Nightmares. But the real ability was being able to transform dreams into his own Nightmare, relying on his imagination not to create new things but to change already existing things.
His repertoire was his opponents, allowing him more room to fight without having to make his own things and instead take the work of others for himself, with his own twist.
As a Nightmare, he was also less, human. It seemed Cain now preferred more instinctual actions.
Sniff sniff...
'A hunting party ventured this deep? ...Two Soldiers, three Wardens, and...a Master. But they're fighting a Corrupt Nightmare and dozens of Shades! Hehehe, perfect for me to intervene.'
Smelling his next prey, Cain rushed off to the fight; he had been starving for the last few days. He was coming close to being forced out of the Dream Realm.
Perfect timing, as they say.