it says mcyt but i'm going to be honest, it's mostly dteam. this is my side blog for gt specifically about my favourite ccs. anything nsfw or vore related will be tagged accordingly
this is a side-blog dedicated to giant-tiny and general size difference minecraft youtuber content (gt mcyt). it will mainly focus on the dsmp or dream team. i prefer giant dream and tiny george and sapnap, so that will be the majority of my content
i mostly reblog and lurk, but occasionally i will post my own fics or prompts. im open to any asks or prompts anyone wants to send me!
here are some gt calculators for help imagining different sizes!
i will reblog and post: both sfw and nsfw content, including safe vore, mouthplay, fear play, and potentially sexual content. everything will be tagged accordingly so you can avoid certain content if wanted
i will not reblog or post: fatal or hard vore, suicide, eating disorders, abuse or violence between main characters/ccs, certain kinks that i find gross, or fics and art with main ocs or reader inserts
my fics are under the cut
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monsters vs aliens
(ao3) (tumblr - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
When a meteor full of extraterrestrial power transforms Dream into a giant, the government renames him Nightmare and confines him to a secret compound with other monsters, like a demon named Sapnap, and a bug-person called George. When an extraterrestrial robots lands on Earth and begins a rampage, these monsters are Earth's first line of defence. But what is really behind this robot, and can Dream save his friends, family, and planet from this unknown villain?
Dream, low on food while traveling through the nether, resorts to eating warped and crimson fungi bc he knows that they're not poisonous. He ends up passing out bc yes while the mushrooms aren't poisonous, you're not so supposed to eat both of them at the same time cause when in contact with each other they cause weird side effects. And he also ate more than 2, so the effects would be stronger
Not long after he passes out, George manages to find him and drag his stupid ass home. Though usually he'd have a bit of a hard time dragging dream back home, it felt even harder this time, almost as if Dream had gotten heavier. When George finally got home and lied Dream down he noticed that the masked man had gotten significantly taller.
Not much later Dream wakes up but is in massive pain. He kinds curls up into a little ball and whimpers as his entire body is shaking. George goes to comfort him but can't help but notice how Dreams body quivers for a few seconds before growing, right infront of him. And his height isn't the only thing growing, Dream aquires sharper nails, horns/tusk, fangs, and cat-like eyes.
giants who want a scared tiny to just look at them.
But when they do catch the tiny's gaze, it's just a wide, tearful stare. Their eyes focus on the giants hands to see if they'll hurt them. Looking at the giant's eyes to gauge their emotions, to see if there's any intent behind them.
The giant doesn't expect, nor want this reaction. whether this tiny is a stranger or a friend, the fact that they are viewed as an instrument of destruction rather than a real living thing pains them.
"Don't look at me like that. You're looking at me like... some type of monster."
Favorite Colour: Green, gold, or red depending on the day
Last Song: Change The Formality by Infected Mushroom
Currently Reading/Watching: The only media I'm consuming right now is Slay The Princess and that's a game. Sorry!
Currently Craving: Painkillers
Coffee or Tea: I love both so so much :( but coffee I guess since its like my brand
ummmmmm @problemcore @goldeneclipsee @microwavethecat1 @moss-the-clown-guy @idontdrinkgatorade @cryptic-vale funny how most of these are tbcu people... anywayz anyone else can join in too :]
Currently reading: The Rise of Darth Vulcan by RHjunior on ao3
Currently watching: Naruto
Currently craving: waffle cones 😋
Coffee or tea: I love both
@kayla-crazy-stuffs (would like to talk to you more!) @colossal-red (would also like to talk to you more!) @gt-mcyt (would like to get to know you!) @da3dm (wanna chat again!) @the-sussy-imposter2 (wanna get to know you!) @boiled-ginger-ale (wanna get to know you!) @astraymetronome (wanna chat some more!) @local-squishmallow (wanna collaborate/art exchange sometime 👀👉👈) @baka-monarch (wanna chat again!)
But Dream is gone, he left in the middle of the night with no explanation for anyone but his sister, and then Sapnap left too and now it's just George, all alone, in the middle of a patch of seagrass with something hovering above him, completely unable to move.
The light from above comes back, but it's wrong in ways that make all of George's scales prickle. He scarcely breathes, gills refusing to flutter, but he can't stay like this forever and he knows it might last forever and he just wants to know what exactly is above him (even though he's pretty sure it's a siren), even if that's confirming the obvious.
Slowly, silently, George tilts his head upward, holding his breath all the while.
Instead of the bright, blue sky and the warm sunlight, George is met with bioluminescent markings, a mouth full of very sharp teeth, and sharp eyes narrowed into slits.
He locks eyes with the siren above him, frozen. He tilts his head and grins, staring back into George's eyes with a gaze filled both with hunger and triumph.
The siren lifts one massive, clawed hand, and licks his lips. "Found you."
- - - -
siren/mer dnf :333
READ HERE OR IN THE TITLE IT'S THE SAME LINK LOL
Reblogs are ALWAYS appreciated even if you don't read the fic! :D Taglist below the cut! Ask me if u wanna be added to/removed from the taglist :3
okay, so im just imagining a puffy who is a pirate and raids a trader's ship, and in the cabins underneath the deck, she finds a tank with a baby mer inside. the water is murky, the tank is unkempt, and the mer looks starved. the mer speaks in clicks and whistles, like a dolphin, but seems to understand english. so, he seems to understand when puffy tells him she would free him.
puffy immediately adopts the baby mer and names him dream. she orders her men to carry the tank to her ship so she can clean it and keep dream on her ship. but she also allows dream to swim in the ocean when he wants, too. dream is a free mer, now. but dream attaches himself to puffy quickly, seeing her as his new pod.
dream is smart and a quick learner and eventually learns several human languages, including english. he gets along well with his older human brother, foolish. the pirate crew are endeared to him. he makes new friends, like bad and his son, sapnap. everyone loves their new baby mer crewmate.
except ... puffy didn't realise just how quickly, and how much, mers grew.
pretty soon, she has a three-hundred foot leviathan who protects her ship in the deep waters and would die for her crew.
(never mind the fact that the leviathan, the mer, is a total sweetheart and commonly teases his older brother about being his "little" brother, to foolish's chagrin).
like, imagine one scene. george is new on the ship and keeps track of the ledgers and numbers of the ship. he doesn't know about their fellow mer crewmate yet, because dream doesn't show himself to new crew members right away. one day, they're raided by another pirate ship and are taken captive. sapnap edges closer to the railing on the side, he takes his dagger - which hadn't been apprehended yet like the other weapons - and he throws it over the side of the ship.
it plops into the water with an anticlimactic splash.
george could almost scream. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" he wants to yell. instead, he says, lamely, "that was our last hope. gone."
the opposing pirates all laugh at him, thinking sapnap stupid.
"any moment, now," sapnap says.
"any moment, what -"
and then a leviathan breeches the water, covered in green scales. its at least a hundred feet long, or at least, the bit outside the water is. its tail is still hidden in the depths. and, oh - the leviathan looks pissed, too. its teeth are bared, long, shark-like teeth on display.
"who dares hurt my family?" the leviathan demands, holding the previously thrown dagger pinched between its fingers.
After saving Paris, France from the giant radioactive snail, the four monsters soon became a staple in dealing with anything radioactive, extraterrestrial, or monster-like. They weren’t well-known across the world – as most people probably thought they were fakes, just photo-shopped into videos and pictures – but that was all for the better. Area Fifty-Something was supposed to be obscure, and its monsters were included in that. Dream found that he liked the mystery that surrounded him, denying any interviews requested, because he never wanted the life of fame that Quackity seemed to always chase.
In the meanwhile, Dream learned how to control his size-shifting powers.
His size-shifting seemed to be controlled in tandem with his emotions – particularly strong emotions, like panic or anger, could push his body to grow or shrink rapidly, in whichever direction was most beneficial for him at the time. It reminded Dream of when he shrunk when trying to hide in the city, which allowed him to blend in with the apartment buildings; or when he grew while fighting the alien-robot, body growing until he was almost four hundred feet tall.
But outside of strong emotions, that didn’t mean he was stuck at a hundred feet tall. With careful control and months of practice, Dream was soon able to grow or shrink whenever he wanted.
Miraculously, his clothes grew and shrunk with him. Unfortunately, it seemed that he couldn’t shrink past seven feet tall – and even then, his body felt like he was wearing an uncomfortable suit, two sizes too small. The same could be said for growing too big; it felt like his body was stretching too thin, his senses overwhelmed. He could only hold different sizes for so long before he had to grow or shrink back to a hundred feet tall, which seemed to be his “normal” or standard size now.
Regardless, Dream was … he was happy, now. Despite seven feet being absurdly tall still, he was able to leave Area Fifty-Something to visit friends and family in St. Augustine’s. And when that got to be too much, he was able to be his natural self at Area Fifty-Something, among his monster friends.
Not to mention the romance that bloomed between him and George …
-
Dream wasn’t expecting it. The last time he had been proposed to was on live air, when Quackity was still a no-one reporter and had used his minimal fame to make a grand proposal with Dream visiting the news station. Dream hadn’t … minded, per say. He thought the gesture was very sweet of Quackity at the time, but looking back on it, the whole thing was probably a fame grab by Quackity. His adoring fans only adored him more for such a sweet gesture, and it made the viewers skyrocket – after all, who wouldn’t want to watch the humble weatherman propose to his high school sweetheart? Add on the fact that it was a homosexual union, and it was truly a spectacle.
None of that mattered now, though. Quackity was in his rear-view mirror and nothing but a speck in his peripheral. Dream was focused on his new life, with George.
Speaking of …
George had been acting awfully odd these past few days. He was begging off time with Dream, checking his pocket obsessively, and doing that adorable nervous tick he had – rubbing his hands together like a fly and then pushing his hair and antennae back.
“Are you okay?” Dream asked one day, poking around his food. It was the same slop as always, but Dream had grown a new appreciation for it, seeing as how it couldn’t be easy to feed a hundred-foot-tall giant every day. He could always shrink down to eat, but he found that when he regrew to his “normal” height, he was still hungry. He turned to George, who was sitting at a miniature version of a table and chair on top of Dream’s table. They often ate like this for meals, together, unless George sat with the other monsters, but lately George had been skipping dinner.
“What?” George asked, stuttering. His tiny chopsticks shook in his hands, clinking against the plate of sushi he had. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Dream frowned. He put down his spoon – still dented from that one time he tried to kill George with it (something the other monsters loved to laugh about, and which made Dream blush) – and reached out to George. He wrapped his hands around the man, fingers curling around his entire body, and carefully pulled the chopsticks from George’s hands. He lifted George onto his palm, and George slumped into Dream’s hand, like all his nerves were short-circuited and severed. He looked so small on his palm.
“George, you’re shaking,” he said softly. “What’s wrong?”
“Um … I … uh …” George stuttered. His face was a brilliant red, and he felt warm in Dream’s hands, which was odd. Dream usually ran hotter than any of his friends, bar Sapnap, who was a literal fire demon. “I … do you want to go to dinner with me?”
Dream blinked. That was not what he thought George was going to say, based on his nerves. Asking Dream out to dinner wasn’t that big of a deal, was it?
“We’re having dinner right now,” Dream said.
“No, I mean, like, going out to a nice restaurant and enjoying ourselves,” George said.
“I don’t know …” Dream trailed off, thinking of the logistics of leaving Area Fifty-Something, booking a reservation, getting dressed in something nice, and staying shrunk enough to blend in with humans.
“Please?” George begged. He sat up in Dream’s palm and grasped his thumb, tiny hands not even stretching the whole length of his thumb nail. “It would be nice to just be on our own for a while, don’t you think? No Stinknap or brainless goop for a whole afternoon. Isn’t that tempting?”
“I guess, if you really want to go out, we can,” Dream gave in.
“Simp!” Sapnap called from the tiny table on the floor, having listened-in on their conversation.
Dream bared his teeth at Sapnap, giving a short growl, which only made Sapnap laugh, before turning back to George. “I don’t have much to wear besides my military jumpsuits …” he had a bin beneath his bed that housed his clothes, with ten or so jumpsuits in storage, along with three pairs of sneakers. They were a mix of military green, black, and grey. Other than that, “But I do still have my wedding suit. Would that be nice enough for what you’re thinking?”
George looked a bit queasy at that suggestion. In his peripheral, Dream could see Sapnap laughing silently into his hands. “Maybe don’t wear anything on our date that reminds you of Quackity.”
“Oh,” Dream said, blushing, “I didn’t think of it like that.”
“We can ask Bad if he can get any clothes in your smaller size,” George offered, “smaller size” meaning seven feet tall.
“Okay,” Dream said, warming up to the idea. “Let’s do this.”
-
It took a couple days to acquire clothing that fit Dream’s seven-foot-tall frame, but eventually, they got their hands on a pair of blue jeans, a nice button-up shirt, and a pair of size sixteen black leather shoes. The blue jeans made the giant’s ass look great, and though the button-up was a little fitted, it showed off Dream’s muscles and chest nicely. George was almost salivating over Dream before they even got to dinner, and he had to pick his jaw up off the ground before Dream turned around to face him, lest Dream find out just badly George simped for him.
Well, George thought amusedly, toying with the ring box in his coat pocket, he’s about to find out just how badly I simp for him, anyway.
With George wearing tinted glasses to hide his eyes, his wings tucked into a long coat, along with barrette clips that pinned his antennae down in his hair, he almost looked human. Dream’s white curls stood out, but his other non-human traits weren’t so stark that they would draw too much attention. Together, the two made quite the pair: a seven-foot-tall giant with a short, doll-like looking man.
They checked into their reservation without problem and soon were tucked into the back corner of the restaurant, something George specifically asked for because he did not want to make this a spectacle. He knew how much Dream hated having so many eyes on him. From their seating in the booth, no one else in the restaurant could see what they were eating or could hear what they were saying. It also had the added benefit of being near the kitchens, where delicious smells wafted out toward their seats. George had everything planned – even the restaurant knew what he was doing, just so that the waiter could be cognisant of it and work with his plan. He discreetly slipped the ring box to the waiter while he took their orders, and then turned to Dream with a smile.
Dinner went well – they talked about their latest adventures, how Dream’s coding projects were going, what George’s most recent studies revealed – and was winding down when the waiter came to their table with a covered platter. Dream smiled gently at the waiter.
“Oh, sorry, we didn’t order this –”
“Actually, I did,” George said. He nodded to the waiter, who pulled the cover off the platter and quickly disappeared to allow George to start his speech.
On the platter was a ring box.
Dream looked visibly confused. “George, what is this?”
George grabbed the ring box, stood from his seat, and then dropped down to one knee in front of his partner. Dream’s eyes widened at George’s gesture, putting his hands over his mouth in shock. With his hands shaking, George opened the ring box, only fumbling a little. Inside was a giant ring to fit Dream’s large fingers; it was a simple gold band, made of eighteen karat gold, with an elegant inscription on the inside that read: “hold my heart gently.”
They had talked about a future together, but they hadn’t gotten into the specifics about engagements and weddings. George figured it was a bad topic to breach because of Dream’s recent wedding fiasco with Quackity. Except, while they had only been together for roughly a year, George knew he wanted nothing more than to bind himself to Dream, emotionally, physically, and legally.
“Dream,” he started, holding out the ring box for Dream to see. “From the moment we met, my life has changed in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I thought I was doomed to be a mutant in a testing facility, without love, for the rest of my life – but then you came. To be honest, when we first met, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes upon – I actually couldn’t speak, you were so beautiful.” Dream blushed a pretty green, eyes rimmed with tears. “You’ve shown me what love means; you’ve shown me there is more to life than science and work. I love seeing you talk about your passions; I love the way your eyes light up – literally – and I love you. Every moment we spend together has only made me more certain that my heart is meant to be with yours forever.”
“Dream,” he continued, “will you … will you marry me?”
Dream seemed to be near tears. He took his hands away from his mouth to fan at his eyes, trying to dry the tears. He took a deep breath to calm himself. For several moments, he didn’t answer, and George began to get anxious. Did … did Dream not want to marry him? Was this proposal a mistake?
“You asshole,” Dream finally muttered, “you’re going to make me grow from pure happiness! Do you know how hard I am trying not to grow and bring the whole place down with me?”
Ah, yes. Dream’s powers were triggered by strong emotions.
Already, Dream’s thighs were beginning to press against the underside of the table, his legs contorting to fit in the diminished space. Dream looked like he wanted to cry.
“I’m sorry,” George rushed. “I shouldn’t have done this in public, I –”
“Oh, no,” Dream interrupted. “This dinner, your speech, and proposal – it was all lovely. I’m just trying to control myself.” At George’s nervous look, he giggled wetly. “And the answer is yes, by the way – what, did you think I was ever going to say no? Now, come here, I want to kiss my fiancé.”
George stood from his knelt position. Even sitting down, now at his increased height, Dream was almost the same height as George standing.
The two kissed passionately.
Against his lips, Dream mumbled, “we better get the bill and then leave; I need to grow, and I want to show you just how much I appreciate you.”
“Sounds good with me,” George said, red-faced.
-
George was nervous, but he thought that he had a right to be so, considering it was his wedding day.
He was dressed in a pale green suit with pink accents. He had a boutonniere on his left lapel. His jacket and shirt had needed to be altered for his wings. His hair was as tamed as it was going to get, with Sapnap’s help and lots of product in it to make it look fluffy and soft. And now that George thought about it, everything in the wedding was fluffy and soft, like his hair. There were Spring colours everywhere and his wing’s transparent shine complimented the pastels of the wedding. They were hosting it outside (to accommodate Dream’s height), and the weather was perfect. It looked like a fairytale wonderland.
George stood anxiously at the altar, holding his hands in front of himself and resisting the urge to comb his claws through his hair, lest he ruin all Sapnap’s hard work. Behind him stood Sapnap and Karl, his groomsmen. On the other side of the altar were Dream’s groomsmen and bridesmaid: Punz, Sam, and Sylvee. Patches sat behind the altar, in the open field they were hosting the wedding in, the perfect image of a well-trained butterfly-kitty. She even had a flower collar around her neck.
Sitting in the chairs laid out for guests were old work friends and family of Dream’s, including his mother in the front, along with a few former alien slaves that the four monsters had gotten to know over the months they stayed at Area Fifty-Something.
Then Dream and his father appeared at the end of the aisle, arm in arm.
Standing at seven feet tall and towering over his five-foot, eight-inch-tall father, Dream was, well … a dream. His white hair was curly and soft, curling just past his ears in little ringlets. His hair matched his dress, which was a stark white except for the bottom, which gracefully turned into a pale green gradient and reached to the ground. The dress had small straps to keep it up, but otherwise, had no other sleeves. The bodice had little white flowers and lace sewn into the fabric, making it look like Spring come to life. Matched with the dress were golden diamond earrings, a diamond necklace, and a golden bracelet with flower charms. Beneath the dress was a pair of pale green flats, which George only knew because Dream had spent an hour complaining about how hard it was to find a pair of size sixteen heels that matched his dress, and he eventually gave up and custom-ordered his flats. And in his hands was a bouquet of pastel flowers, with lilacs, roses, and daisies.
Dream was a sight to behold, and it made George breathless. George knew that Dream still got self-conscious about his size sometimes – a “freak,” is what he had called himself – but if George could pour all his love and longing for Dream into Dream’s heart, he would. He would force Dream to realise just how precious and beautiful he was, if it was the last thing he did on this earth.
When Dream caught sight of George, his eyes widened, and his smile grew. His smile wasn’t the only thing that grew, though, as he also shot up a foot in height in his excitement.
His careful control of his size-shifting powers always stuttered in the face of powerful emotions.
Dream’s father, who had stumbled at the sudden shift in size – pulling his arm even higher than it was before – laughed along with most of the wedding party, causing Dream to blush a pretty green.
The pair walked the rest of the aisle, piano music playing in the background.
When Dream reached the altar, he passed his bouquet to Sylvee to hold and turned and clasped George’s hands in his own. Both of George’s hands fit into one of Dream’s, and Dream towered over George. He looked positively beautiful, and George could only hope that he measured to muster.
Bad stood behind the happy couple, for once not dressed in his military gear, and instead wearing a light pink suit. He was holding out his book to read their prayers from. When Dream and George had first announced their engagement, Bad had offered to be the minister to do their wedding. Who knew that the infamous military general was ordained? Certainly not George. Both George and Dream agreed that they didn’t want their wedding to be a religious spectacle, like Dream’s first wedding. And Bad respected that. He was wonderful, reading his script in a strong, fond voice; talking about the highs and lows of Dream and George’s meeting, how they got together, and the victories they shared. He read the traditional lines, “in sickness and in health,” and then they finally got to the end:
“You may now kiss.”
Dream looked down at George, his eyes shining with unshed tears. He grew another half foot within seconds, before he stopped and took a deep breath. George knew, from experience, that Dream was probably suppressing the desire to grow to a hundred feet tall, purely from excitement and love alone. Dream, still holding George’s hands, leaned down, while George got on his tip toes, and they kissed.
Then George felt Dream’s large hands on his bottom, and he easily jumped up and into Dream’s arms, being cradled in a bridal carry. They maintained their kiss, and there were whoops and hollers from the audience. And George had never been so happy before.
Dream groaned. He felt like he got hit by a train, or like his plane crashed … Dream gasped as everything came rushing back to him – the robot fight, the celebrations, the plane crashing. He pushed himself into a sitting position, looking around for his friends, but instead he found something even stranger than three little monsters. He looked to be in some sort of hanger, like where planes would go for storage, except it was filled with over a hundred of that giant robot he fought. There were so many of them, all standing over three hundred feet tall, looming over him and ready to be dispatched at any minute. Dream, despite knowing he stood at a hundred feet tall, felt small in the face of so much strength.
Looking down at himself, Dream found that what he was wearing had changed. Instead of the green military jumpsuit that he had worn for two months, he was wearing a skin-tight black and green jumpsuit. It had lines running up and down the arms and legs, and it glowed dimly in the pitch-black hanger. It looked almost alien in design, like the spandex a fictional hero would wear.
His friends were also nowhere to be found, despite last seeing them in his hands, which scared Dream.
Were they … dead?
The thought made his eyes sting with tears.
While Dream was distracted, something whizzed behind him, and he gasped. He turned around, only to hear the same whoosh of air behind him again. When he turned back, he came face to face with what could only be described as an alien.
The alien – for it was neither man nor woman – was just shorter than the length of Dream’s hand. It looked to be about eight inches tall, but realistically, was probably eight feet. Its skin was the colour of the night sky, with glowing starry freckles to match smattered across their cheeks and forehead. It had hair, too, that matched the same white of Dream’s, and it was long enough that it was in a complicated braid behind their back. Its face would have looked human, if not for the too-much upturned nose, long canines, and four glowing green eyes. It was also dressed in green robes that made room for the four arms it had. It floated on a hovercraft at chest level with Dream, who was still on the floor.
All in all, the alien looked ethereal.
The alien smiled. It looked like the smile of someone who had seen a human smile before, and had practiced said smile in the mirror, but didn’t truly encompass the human emotion it was supposed to convey. “You must be terrified,” a smooth, rich voice came from the alien. Dream was surprised that they spoke in English. “You wake up in a strange place, wearing strange clothes, faced by a strange being, floating on a strange hovering device. It’s all very strange, isn’t it?”
Dream glowered at the alien. “Hardly. It’s not the first time.”
“You must think you’re funny,” the alien said dryly.
“Look, who are you, and what is it that you want from me?” Dream asked.
“You may call me Lord Exdee,” the alien – Exdee, because Dream was not calling it ‘Lord’ – said. “And you have stolen what is rightfully mine!”
“I didn’t steal anything from you,” Dream protested, “I didn’t meet you until today!”
Exdee sighed, like Dream was a particularly dumb individual. “Your enormous, grotesque body,” it said, and Dream frowned. “Did you never wonder how you grew so large? Your body absorbed a considerable amount of quantonium, the most powerful energy source in the entire known universe. Did you really think you could keep it from me forever?”
“That’s what this is all about?” Dream demanded, growing enraged. “You destroyed parts of Florida, you terrified millions of people, you …” Dream’s voice got thick, and he struggled to speak. “… you killed my friends, just to get some stupid energy source?”
“Silence, Earthling!” Exdee snapped. “Your voice is grating on my ears. It’s time to go to the extraction chamber!” Suddenly, a metal platform swooped in below Dream’s feet, and another metal layer floated above him, like magnets that swayed together, and then there was a spark; a giant glowing green force-field was created between the two metal layers, trapping Dream in between them like prison bars. It hummed with power. He reached out to touch the force-field, only to gasp when it gave a powerful shock. Exdee laughed. “This is just a small bit of what one can do with a little bit of quantonium. It’s a shame that you won’t be around to see what the true power of quantonium can do in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.”
“I know how to use it just fine!” Dream spat. He stood and punched the force-field, only to gasp again because it shocked him. He shook out his fist, glaring at the alien.
“Don’t bother,” Exdee said. “That force-field is impenetra –”
Dream punched again, throwing all his strength behind it, and this time, his hand went right through the force-field, hitting Exdee’s hovercraft and flipping it. Exdee barely got a hold of its hovercraft, saving it from falling, and then gaped at Dream. “– what the hell?!”
Dream grinned, all teeth, and used his hands to reach into the force-field to pry it apart. He ignored the continuous shocks it gave him, pushing through, until he swept it all away. Without the force-field, the top metal platform fell, and Dream caught it with both hands. Rage coursing though him, remembering the plane crash and how his friends were all dead, Dream threw the platform at Exdee’s hovercraft. Exdee flew away at high speeds, and a large metal door smoothly closed behind it. The metal platform bounced off the hanger door, leaving a large dent behind. Dream got up and walked over to the hanger door, glaring through the little window provided.
Exdee, out of breath, laughed in relief. Its voice was muted through the window, but no less enraging. “That should stop you from getting to me, you freak –”
Dream punched through the metal hanger door like it was wet paper.
Exdee shrieked and flew away.
“Computer, close door hanger two!” It yelled.
Dream ran after Exdee, determined to catch it and … well, Dream had never thought of himself as a violent person, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to hold himself back from killing Exdee after all he had done. Barely thinking about the morality of wanting to kill an alien terrorist, Dream punched through the next door, much the same as he did with the first. Exdee shrieked again.
“Close door, hangar three! Door, hangar four!” But Dream kept running, punching and crawling through them all. Exdee screamed, “Computer, close all the hangar doors!”
Dream just barely missed catching Exdee as he zoomed into a smaller hallway, much too small for Dream to get through. But he could follow above, where the hallway became a small narrow tube in the floor. He used his enhanced hearing, ears twitching, to tell where Exdee was in the tube. He punched through the metal, just barely missing each time, until finally – finally, near the end, his hands grabbed hold of the flying machine Exdee used, sending him skidding out of the back end of the hallway and into a large room. Dream got up and followed, breathing heavily, watching the little alien running away from him. Dream started running, relishing in the scream from Exdee, up until –
Exdee reached the end of the walkway, pulled a giant lever, and thick glass walls shot up around Dream, surrounding the metal patterns on the floor he was standing on.
“NO!” Dream screamed. Just when he was so close!
He banged on the glass, watching it fracture beneath his fists. He pursed his lips, doing it again. More fractures. In the background, he heard Exdee shriek and yell, “Computer, begin extraction!”
Suddenly, there was a loud few beeps, and then the feeling of a vacuum being held up right against his chest. His hair started to float. A bright light – neon green – flowed from his chest and upward. Dream stumbled. He could physically feel himself getting weaker. More of the light, like hundreds of bioluminescent plankton on the water, floated through the air. Dream’s vision shrunk. He was … he was shrinking, getting weaker and weaker, as the quantonium was stolen from his body. Dream tried to keep hitting the glass – he was so close to breaking it, to getting free – but he only got smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. His vision went fuzzy until he was left slumped on the ground, too weak to move.
He looked down at himself.
His hair was still white, his ears still felt pointed; he ran his tongue along his canines, and they were still elongated. Even with all the quantonium siphoned from his body, he was still a freak.
Dream heard a sinister chuckle, and he looked up, only to find the alien, Exdee, looming over him. Exdee had looked so small earlier – barely the size of his hand – but now he was at least two feet taller than Dream. It made Dream feel weak, it made him feel scared. All his rage was gone, replaced by fear.
“Finally, I have all the quantonium,” Exdee said gleefully. “And finally, I can rebuild my civilisation on a new planet.” Dream frowned. Rebuild his civilisation? What was that supposed to mean? “Any thoughts on where I should start?” Exdee hummed; it was an unsettling hum, like one a computer made. “Your planet, perhaps? Earth does look ripe for the picking.”
Dream snarled, a growl building low in his chest. He pushed himself to stand. “You keep your hands off my planet – ugh!”
Dream was stopped by a large hand around his neck. One of Exdee’s four arms was outstretched, holding Dream two feet up in the air. Dream’s feet dangled helplessly. Exdee snarled right back at Dream, baring his fangs, which were larger than Dream’s. “If you wanted to stop me, you should have done it when you possessed the quantonium! Now … now you’re nothing.”
“There are innocent people down there who didn’t do anything!” Dream choked out.
“There were innocent people on my home planet before it was destroyed,” Exdee hissed. It threw Dream to the ground, and Dream hit the metal, body slumping. He rubbed at his bruising neck, tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry your planet was destroyed,” Dream said, “But that’s not a reason to kill billions of innocent people. Please …”
“It’s too late,” Exdee said, voice hollow. “My whole planet was invaded. My family were taken as slaves. My partner was killed. I barely escaped on one of the invader’s ships with the little bit of quantonium that I stole. And with that bit of quantonium, I thought I could defeat the invaders … but it didn’t work. I didn’t have enough. So, I ran away, like a coward, thinking I could come back to save my family. But it’s been years now, and I’m never going to get my family back … and neither are you.”
-
“What … what are we going to do now?” Karl asked meekly.
The three monsters stood beyond the wreckage of their plane. It was completely totalled and on fire. The only reason they had survived was because Dream had grabbed them and taken the brunt of the impact. Then, limp and nearly dead, Dream had been beamed up toward an alien spacecraft, like every cheap, tacky alien movie ever. Now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, Dream was missing, and they had no idea what to do.
“I … I don’t know,” George said. He mostly felt hollow. Dream was gone – most likely dead – and the dread and grief were creeping up on him eagerly.
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Sapnap said. “We’re not going to let this … this cheap, stupid alien take Dream without a fight. We’re going to get up there, find Dream, and take that alien down!”
“And how do you propose we do that?” George snapped.
Behind them, someone cleared their throat. There was the sound of mini thrusters from a jetpack.
“I think I can help,” Bad said, then he gestured behind himself, where another cargo plane had landed. “I came as soon as I heard the plane went down.”
“Bad!” The monsters yelled.
-
The cargo plane took off with all three monsters and the general. In the cargo hold, Bad turned to the monsters. His brown eyes softened.
“All right, so, I know I haven’t treated you well enough over the years,” Bad began. He wiped a tear from his cheek. “But I need you to know that I … I care about you guys. And we can’t let this alien terrorise Earth and take our Dream. These jetpacks I’ve given you – they have enough juice to get you guys up there, but not enough to make it home. I’ll come get you if I can. If I don’t, it means I’m dead … or late. Don’t jump to the worst conclusion. I’ve been your warden for close to a decade now, and I would do anything to keep you guys alive.”
Bad threw each monsters a jetpack, showing them how to secure it and tie the straps, and how to work the buttons. As he was helping Karl get his jetpack on so that his Jell-O-like body wouldn’t consume it, the pilot yelled from the cockpit.
“General!” He screamed, “it’s targeting us!”
Outside the back of the plane, they could all see where a large ball of energy had been shot out of the UFO. It was homing in on their plane.
“That’s your cue,” Bad told the monsters. “Go, go, go!”
All three monsters jumped out of the cargo hold, using their jetpacks to soar toward the UFO.
“Now,” Bad said, “to deal with the other problem …” He turned toward the large ball of energy – practically a missile – heading toward them. He thought about Patches and her latest transformation. He grinned. “I have a plan.”
-
The three monsters landed in the hangar, which thankfully, had been open and left unguarded from the outside. They were quick to infiltrate the ship, following the path of destruction which could be the work of none other than Dream – after all, the holes punched through the metal? It had his name written all over it, and that elated the monsters, knowing he was still alive. They still had time. Now, they just had to find him …
-
“Slave!” Exdee called. Immediately, another alien hurried into the room. This alien looked a lot less humanoid than Exdee. They had four beetle-like wings, mandibles, and eight spider-like eyes that glowed red. They were dressed in a garb similar to what Dream was put in. The alien bowed to Exdee, and Exdee sneered at them, “Take the prisoner to the incinerator. He’s useless to me now.”
“Hail Lord Exdee!” The alien clicked out, sounding high-pitched. They then jabbed what looked like a laser gun into Dream’s shoulder blades. At the very least, they were shorter than Dream, though he wasn’t sure he would be able to take them in a fight – not with their weapon and sharp claws.
Dream had no choice but to walk forward, following the ‘slave’ further into the ship.
“So,” Dream said, trying to stall, “what’s your name?”
The alien seemed to fumble with the laser gun for a moment, as if not expecting the prisoner to talk or ask them questions. Their face didn’t display emotion very well, as insect-like as it was, but Dream got the feeling they were surprised.
“My – my name?” They asked. “Why do you want to know? So, you can steal it?!”
“How do you steal a name?” Dream asked, genuinely confused.
“I – I don’t know!” The alien sputtered. “But you Earthlings – you’re a sneaky sort, I heard. You can do lots of things. I don’t doubt you can steal names.”
“Well, as a human, we can’t steal names,” Dream said, not disclosing that he wasn’t exactly human anymore. “And I think calling you ‘slave’ is pretty rude. Slavery isn’t okay, like, at all. Here, I’ll go first: my name is Dream. What’s yours?”
The alien made a weird clicking sound. “My name is Jurelle.”
“Jurelle is a pretty name,” Dream offered.
Jurelle went quiet and then made a high-pitched squeal sound. He wasn’t sure, but Dream got the impression that Jurelle was blushing.
“So, why do you do Exdee’s bidding?” Dream asked.
“Lord Exdee,” Jurelle corrected, “is the high and mighty lord of ours. He comes from a higher race of beings than us. He is smarter, stronger, and bigger. He came to our planet and enlightened us about the use of technologies that we couldn’t ever hope to begin to understand or make. He took us in, under his arms, and allows us to work for him for free.” Jurelle sounded like they were reciting a mantra.
“Work without pay?” Dream tsked. “You’re being taken advantage of; I hope you know that.”
“Lord Exdee would never!” Jurelle squeaked out.
“I’m just saying,” Dream said, “slavery isn’t good. He doesn’t even know your name. If I were you, I would be pissed. Do you even get sick days or dental?”
“What is …” Jurelle made another clicking sound with their mandibles. “What is … ‘dental’?”
“You don’t even have dental,” Dream said, shaking his head. “It’s where you get free services to take care of your teeth … or in your case, your mandibles. It’s basic healthcare.”
“No,” Jurelle said slowly. “We don’t get dental.”
They were silent for a second, and then:
“I would like to have dental.”
Dream grinned.
“If you help me,” he started, “I can help you get dental.”
“I …” Jurelle got quiet. “I don’t know …”
They continued to walk, turning down one hallway, only to come face to face with …
The three little monsters!
Dream felt overwhelming happiness, so much so that his eyes started to water. “Karl, George, Sapnap! You’re alive!”
He ran to them, pulling them into one big embrace. It was different than before, when he could hold them all in the palm of his hand, but it was a good different. Dream liked being able to touch and hold them like a normal human. It made him feel soft all over. Unfortunately, their reunion was cut-off. Jurelle hunched over, pointing their laser gun at the three little – or, well, not as little as before – monsters. Dream immediately stood in front of the gun, protecting the monsters.
“No, Jurelle!” He said, “It’s okay! These are my friends! They can help set you free!”
“And get dental?” They clicked.
“And get dental,” Dream confirmed. At the monsters’ confused looks, he sighed. “It’s a long story. We don’t have time for it – we need to escape first!”
-
“The only way to escape and ensure that the alien – Exdee, you said his name was? – will not come back after us and continue to terrorise Earth is if we blow up this ship,” George insisted. He was walking beside Dream, who was, in turn, beside the alien – Jurelle, he thought? George had never seen another person who looked like himself – all insect-like – but he still couldn’t take his eyes off Dream. Dream, who looked the same as always, with his beautiful white hair and bright green eyes, but was now human-sized. If he were being honest, it was throwing George off-kilter.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Sapnap asked, cracking his knuckles.
“We need to find the main power source,” George said. “Whatever it is, it must be similar to nuclear power to charge a ship this big – and nuclear power is very, very dangerous if it explodes. It would be perfect to take down an entire alien ship.”
“You need the main power source?” Jurelle asked. “That’s easy. It’s right there, above the extraction chamber.”
Jurelle pointed with one claw. Down the hallway, it opened into a large room, where the ceiling stretched for hundreds of feet in the air. The walkway dropped down into darkness and in the middle of the ceiling was a huge power source. It looked like a generator of some sort, made up of a bunch of different grey metal tubes and cubes, whirring gently and glowing faintly.
“Well, that was easy,” Karl giggled.
“Come on,” George said, “it’s time to blow some shit up.”
-
They left Jurelle on the ground with the laser gun to guard them.
Using Karl’s abilities, he jumped all the way up to the ceiling, stretching his body thin. Dream, George, and Sapnap grabbed onto his body as he bounced to the ceiling, letting them in through a crack in the generator. Once they were in, they let go of Karl and spread out, looking for main power core. Dream ducked under a metal tube and into a smaller part of the generator, only to come face-to-face with a giant glowing … brain? It had a bunch of wires attached to it, and a keypad in front with odd symbols. The brain, in a computer-generated voice, said: “Warning: intruder!”
“Dream?!” George called. He also ducked into the small space, and his brow furrowed when he saw the brain and keypad. “Huh. I guess we can try and guess the code to get into the computer.”
“You will never figure out my code,” the computer voice said.
“Artificial intelligence!” George said, looking excited. “That’s so cool –”
“George,” Dream reminded, “the power source?”
“Oh, right,” George said sheepishly.
“Your puny Earthling brain cannot possibly work around my security protocols,” the computer said haughtily.
“Okay, new plan,” George said, looking furious, “we fuck shit up until it does damage.”
George cackled maniacally before he reached out and grabbed hold of the wires, yanking at them until they ripped out the brain. The brain pulsed angrily. George started fiddling with the wires until electrical sparks flew everywhere. The computer voice started to glitch and squeal. “Warning: security protocol had been breached. Ship has been set to self-destruct. Total annihilation in t-minus seven minutes.”
Dream and George glanced at each other and grinned.
-
“What?” Exdee growled. “What do you mean the security protocol has been breached?!”
“The prisoner escaped and reunited with his Earthling friends,” the computer said, matter-of-factly. “They ruined my power source and main computer. The ship will explode in t-minus six minutes.”
“Well, launch the robot invasion, then!”
“Invasion is no longer possible. All branches of the ship have been shut down.”
“FUCK!” Exdee roared. “Those petty Earthlings! Fine! Divert the quantonium to the bridge and prepare my escape capsule! Make sure to get all possible quantonium transferred and block the slaves from using my escape route. I don’t want any of them to ruin my plan for the quantonium.”
The quantonium from the extraction chamber started to flow through glass tubes to the statue of Lord Exdee situated in the middle of the room. The statue was twenty feet tall and was the perfect likeness of Exdee, right down to its sneer and long canines. The core of the statue opened up to a pod that would protect Exdee from outer space. One of its four arms was outstretched, holding a large glass ball, which was hollow. On the inside it could be seen that the bright neon quantonium collected into the glass ball, lighting it up with a green glow. Exdee watched this with pursed lips, anger and fear growing in its heart. This would not be the first time it had to run away, but this time, it would have all the power needed to start anew.
-
Below, once Dream, George, Karl, and Sapnap had left the main power source, they found that Jurelle had disappeared. It wasn’t hard to see why; all around them was pandemonium. Slaves – all different alien species, some of them looking like insects, some of them looking like fish – ran in all different directions, screaming and crying. Weapons were forgotten on the ground.
Sapnap laughed. “Look at that! They’re all running! The monsters have won this one!” Dream elbowed Sapnap in the gut, making him choke. “You know, for not being so ginormous anymore, you’re still pretty strong …” He rasped, holding his gut.
“Sapnap!” Dream hissed. “Those are all slaves! It’s not their fault that Exdee enslaved them. And they’re not running from us, they’re running from –”
“Ship will self-destruct in t-minus five minutes,” the computer echoed.
“That,” Dream finished lamely.
His eyes locked on the large hangar door in front of them. It was slowly sliding closed and would eventually trap them in the main room of the ship, left for dead in the explosion.
“Come on!” Dream said, “we need to start running, or else we’re going to be stuck on this ship when it explodes!”
Altogether, the four monsters started running. Fifty feet, thirty feet, ten feet – they got closer and closer as the door continued to close slowly. Dream led the way with his long strides, outpacing the other monsters easily. Only a few feet away, he held out a hand before the door closed, managing to hold it open and get through right as it clicked shut.
Breathing heavily, he whooped cheerfully. “Yes! We made it!” He exclaimed. But all he was met with was silence. Dream turned. Behind him was no one – the other monsters hadn’t gotten to the door in time.
“Guys?!” He called.
Through the metal, his ears twitching, he faintly heard, “Dream, if you can hear us – get out of here while you’ve still got the chance!”
“No!” Dream cried. He tried to pry at the doors with his hands, but they wouldn’t budge. He growled, banging on the metal with his fists. “Ugh! If I was still a giant, I could do this!”
“Dream!” George said, voice urgent. “We meant it! You better be running right now!”
“No!” Dream growled, “I’m not leaving you guys!”
The little monsters obviously couldn’t hear Dream the way that he could hear them, because Sapnap’s next words were: “We were supposed to rendezvous with Bad after saving you. He’s outside the ship, waiting for us. Go while there’s still time!”
“Don’t worry about us, Dream,” George said. It sounded like his forehead was pressed against the metal crack, voice thick with emotion, but quiet, as if he didn’t mean for Dream to hear him. “You finally have a chance to get your old life back.”
“But I don’t want my old life back,” Dream said, voice meek.
“Ship will self-destruct in t-minus four minutes,” the computer echoed.
Dream could feel angry tears welling at the corner of his eyes. He hugged himself tightly, glancing down at his feet, trying to fight off the tears. None of this was fair, he thought. But that’s when he spotted it: a hover craft, just like the one Exdee had used before. It was lying on its side, abandoned by the slaves in the ship in favour of running. It hummed quietly and glowed with a faint green light. Beside it laid an also abandoned laser gun. Dream frowned, ideas starting to form in his head. If he could remember the way back to the extraction chamber, from where Jurelle took him, maybe he could find Exdee …
And he would make Exdee pay.
-
“They think they have stopped me?” Exdee growled. It slammed its fist down on the table. “Well, they have stopped nothing! I will come right back to Earth and destroy it all, just like they destroyed my home planet! Earth will know the wrath of Lord Exdee, just you wait –”
“The inferior carbon-based life form, or Dream, is no longer contained,” the computer interrupted.
“WHAT?” Exdee exclaimed. “Where is he? Send a robot probe! Crush the Earthling!”
“Sending robot probe and – oh, uh-oh,” the computer said, sounding oddly human. “He is coming your way in t-minus thirty seconds –”
The metal door behind Exdee practically melted open from the laser on the laser gun. The laser shot through the giant hole it melted, almost hitting Exdee square in the chest. Exdee barely threw up the table in front of it, the metal taking the shot instead of itself. Exdee gasped, looking over at the Earthling, who was stepping through the new hole in the door, obviously on a warpath.
“Are you crazy?!” Exdee demanded. “You could have killed me with that thing!”
-
“Then we understand each other,” Dream said darkly.
“Quantonium has been successfully diverted to the bridge,” the computer interrupted. Dream watched as the last of the statue and tubes stopped glowing, and all the bright green light being concentrated in the glass ball that the statue of Exdee held. He frowned. If that was the quantonium, then … “The escape capsule is ready for transport.”
“Hah!” Exdee said. It casually strolled over to the twenty-foot-tall statue of its likeness. The chest of the statue opened to reveal a pod, just the perfect size for someone like Exdee.
“Like I told you before,” Exdee said smugly, “you should have defeated me when you had the quantonium. Have fun exploding!”
Before Exdee could step into the pod, though, a laser was blasted directly into the pod, melting half the controls. Dream stepped forward, standing right beneath the outstretched glass ball. He leveled the laser gun at the alien, glaring. “Open the doors and let my friends go, and I’ll let you use whatever is left of your escape pod. If you don’t … well, I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Exdee looked close to having an aneurysm. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t!” It cried. “That’s what happens when you set a ship to self-destruct – everything shuts down! And now, thanks to you, we’re all going to die! And there’s nothing you can do about it, Earthling!” It finished off with a sneer.
Dream’s brain was working on overdrive, trying to think of a way to save his friends, up until he glanced up at the statue and the quantonium held in the glass ball. He smirked. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said, aiming his laser gun at the statue. “And the name? It’s Dream, not Earthling.”
And with that, he shot the hand of the statue, causing the large glass ball of quantonium to fall directly on top of him. Everything went black.
-
“Total annihilation in t-minus one minute,” the computer echoed.
Around them, the ship was falling apart. The walkway was slowly crumbling, electrical sparks shot from the walls, and the generator malfunctioned above them. All the slaves had long since run or fallen off the walkway to their deaths, at least sparing them from the explosion. George, Karl, and Sapnap were left alone on the wrong side of the doors, and they were getting prepared to die.
Sapnap turned to George. “It’s been an honour knowing you, Doctor Cockroach.”
George sniffled, wiping tears from his eyes. “I told you not to call me that, you fucking demon.”
“And I’ll see you guys tomorrow, for lunch,” Karl added.
Sapnap gave a tenuous smile. “That’s right, Karl.”
“And there will be candy, cake, and balloons, too,” George added.
“Cake and balloons for lunch?” Karl gasped. “It’s going to be the best day ever! I love you guys!”
Just then, there was a large groan from above, and the three little monsters gasped as they looked up. The generator, which was roughly a hundred feet by two hundred feet in size, had fallen from the ceiling. As it hurtled toward them, they all flinched and ducked their heads, waiting for the inevitable. But it never came. After several seconds of not being crushed, George and Sapnap exchanged glances. They finally looked upward, only to find Dream – back to his giant size, maybe even bigger – holding the generator up above his head, saving them all from being crushed. Dream’s face was scrunched up in intense concentration as he struggled to get hold of his strength.
“Holy shit …” George breathed. Dream had never looked so breathtaking.
Dream grunted as he heaved the generator over his shoulder and over the side of the walkway. He got down on his knees, reaching out to his three little monsters, who were eagerly herded into his hands.
“Come on,” Dream said, breathless. “We need to get out of here.”
“Good enough for me!” Sapnap said, laughing.
“Thank god you came along!” George said.
Dream gathered all three little monsters in his hands, holding them to his chest as he jumped off the walkway. He held out his fist, like Superman, and punched through several metal floors in the ship before they were suddenly outside, falling on the landing pad at the bottom of the ship. Dream took the brunt of the impact, grunting in pain and letting go of the three little monsters to put them down. Below them was more than a thousand-foot drop, too far for Dream to tank safely. If he jumped he wouldn’t survive, but neither would his friends.
“Total annihilation in t-minus thirty seconds,” the computer called out.
“Nowhere to go from here,” Dream gasped. “Where’s Bad? You said Bad would be here!”
“He’s supposed to be here!” Sapnap argued.
“He said the only reason he wouldn’t be here is if he was dead!” George said worriedly.
Just then, there was an explosion from behind them, blowing them all off the landing pad and into a free-fall. All four monsters screamed before, suddenly, they hit something soft and firm. Dream gasped into familiar fur. In front of him, latched onto a furry brown horn, was Bad. Below them was Patches, the cat-caterpillar – or rather, now the butterfly-cat. Sprouted from her back were two newly formed beautiful brown-red-and-white patched wings.
“I said I would be dead … or late!” Bad yelled over the wind.
Behind them, as they flew away on the new butterfly-cat, the alien ship exploded into over a million pieces. Sapnap laughed joyfully. Dream was just happy that everyone he cared about was alive and well. They slowly headed back toward Florida – toward home.
-
As soon as Patches landed safely in his parent’s neighbourhood – maybe accidentally pushing aside a car or two on the way down – Dream was quick to slide off her back. He loved Patches, truly, but he was glad to have his feet back on the ground. Dream then spotted a crowd growing on the road, made up of all his parents’ neighbours and friends. He heard the yelling from his own friends – “He’s back!” and “Dream’s the goat!” and “Did you see what happened?!” – and then he saw his parents.
“Clay!” His father and mother called at the same time.
“Mom! Dad!” Dream exclaimed.
For all he had wished he was a giant back on the alien spaceship to help save his friends – and how he didn’t mind being this size once again – he still wished that sometimes, he could be smaller, if only so he could hug those he cared about. And, just like that, his body seemed to listen to him. With a gasp, Dream was suddenly shrinking down. He was still absurdly tall – maybe ten feet or so – but he was actually able to hug his mother and father like this. His parents’ jaws dropped at his display of power, but they still welcomed his embrace.
“Oh, gods,” his mother said. “I hope you’re okay. That – that alien didn’t lay a hand on you, did they?”
“I’m fine, mom,” Dream said. “In fact, I’m better than fine. I feel great!”
And he wasn’t lying. Ever since regaining the quantonium, his body had healed the bruises around his neck and wiped away any aches and pains he’d had.
But then his ears started to twitch as he heard a familiar voice.
“Excuse me! Hello! Coming through!” From the crowd emerged Quackity, a camera man following intently behind him. Quackity was dressed in his usual work attire, a nice suit jacket, slacks, and leather shoes, along with his hair being gelled back. Quackity turned to Dream with a smile, having to crane his neck to look Dream in the eyes. His eyes widened. “Dream!”
Dream’s eyes locked on his ex-fiancé. “Quackity?”
“Babe,” Quackity started, “I thought long and hard about what happened between us – and I want you to know … I forgive you.”
“You … you forgive me?”
“Of course!” Quackity said. He gave what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, but only came off as arrogant. “I decided … it wasn’t your fault you got hit by a meteor and ruined everything. And you know what? I say maybe you didn’t ruin everything – I just got a call from New York. They offered me the network! All I need to do is get an exclusive interview from you.”
“… really?” Dream asked.
“Yeah!” Quackity had stars in his eyes. “I get my dream job, and you get your dream guy. It’s a win-win for Team García!”
“Quackity, that’s … amazing. You know what – is the camera rolling?” Dream tilted his head.
“Absolutely!” Quackity gestured to the camera behind him. “All you need to do is – whoa!”
Dream quickly grew back to his hundred-foot-tall size with a mere thought, his entire body glowing a faint green. He knelt down and picked up Quackity by the back of his suit jacket, causing Quackity to have to hug himself so he wouldn’t slip out of the jacket and fall the twenty feet to the asphalt. Dream held Quackity up in front of his face, and he watched as Quackity gulped thickly. He grinned, all teeth, sharp and white.
“Good,” Dream said, “because I wouldn’t want your fans to miss this. After everything you said and did to me over the years, this is Clay Greene saying: Goodbye Quackity!”
He gently flicked Quackity, but with his increased size and strength, Quackity went flying into the air.
Dream knelt lower and whispered to Karl, “can you catch him?”
Karl nodded and quickly moved over to catch and swallow Quackity from his free-fall, eventually spitting him out. Quackity was left slumped on the asphalt, covered in purple goo and utterly humiliated. Karl stuck his tongue out and said, “bleh. You taste like a selfish jerk.”
Quackity turned toward the camera with a defeated look in his eyes. “Just … turn it off.”
-
As it turned out, some of the slaves got off the alien ship before it exploded by using the few free escape pods. Hundreds of aliens – from insect-like looking humanoids to lizard-looking aliens – came off the escape pods, seeking asylum on Earth. The American government had to deal with these asylum seekers, but it was by the persuasion of Bad that they were treated as people and not slaves. By hosting them at Area Fifty-Something for a few months, they were able to integrate the aliens into human society by giving them jobs, homes, and yes – with Jurelle as their spokesperson, they all got dental insurance, as well. And eventually, the humans in Florida got used to their new monster and alien residents.
-
“Monsters, I’m so proud of you!” Bad said, back at Area Fifty-Something. The monsters were gathered in the commons, and Bad was back in his jetpack. Patches laid on the floor, flapping her wings and swishing her tail, enjoying pets from Dream, who currently stood at three hundred feet tall for an easier time petting the new butterfly-cat. “You saved not just Florida, not just America, not just hundreds of alien slaves, but the world as a whole! While the property damage costs from your fight and the explosion may be high, my pride for you guys is even higher! But, and I hate to say this, the world needs you again.”
“What is it, Bad?” Dream asked. He turned and pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging them. Patches meowed loudly when he stopped petting her.
“It seems a snail fell into a French nuclear reactor, turning into a giant monster in the process. As we speak, it is slowly making its way to Paris.”
“Well,” Dream said, looking over at the three little monsters. He grinned and said in jest, “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.” By now, they all knew his failed engagement and ruined honeymoon story. Sapnap snorted, George smiled, and Karl giggled.
Sapnap looked over at Patches. “I’m in if Patches is in.”
Patches meowed in agreement.
“I’m in!” Karl said.
“Count me in, too! I’ll go anywhere Dream goes!” George said, then blushed, seeming to realise what he just said out loud.
“Well then,” Bad said, “it’s time to save the world again!”
Far, far away from Earth – though, maybe a little closer this time – a spaceship floated through the vast galaxy. Inside that spaceship, Exdee stood overlooking a giant screen, which showed real-time footage from its robot probe on Earth. For a while, Exdee saw nothing but the stupid buildings and technology that the Earthlings had invented. The robot even crushed a few Earthlings, nothing sad there. But then he showed up. The freakishly large Earthling, the one that stole his quantonium. Exdee got increasingly angrier and angrier the longer he watched the footage, seeing that – that Earth freak beat his robot! Its ethereally beautiful face became marred with a sneer, long canines bared.
Above it, its computer’s voice echoed. “Retrieval has failed,” the computer said. Exdee slammed its fists down on the table in front of it, denting the metal. “Don’t get upset. It happens to everyone.”
“That lower life form thinks he can steal my quantonium?” Exdee demanded. “Send another probe!”
“Quantonium cannot be retried via robot anymore,” the computer said matter-of-factly, ignoring the building rage on Exdee’s face. “The carbon-based life-form, locally known as ‘Dream,’ is now too strongly bonded with the quantonium for that to work.”
“Oh,” Exdee said, taking this personally, “he thinks because he’s all big and strong, and he can destroy my robot probe, that he’s going to send me running and hiding?” Exdee snarled, eyes flashing dangerously. It balled its four fists in rage and fear. “My days of running and hiding are over! Computer, set a course to Earth. I will retrieve the quantonium myself, even if I need to rip it out of the Earthling’s body one cell at a time.”
-
Not long after the robot’s demise, the military came back to pick the monsters up. Patches was acting a little strange, and her fur looked a little bleak, but she was still easily lured away from the damaged bridge with a large ball and string. The other four monsters left in another plane. Back in the cramped cargo plane, sitting hunched over, and thankfully only a hundred feet tall again, Dream was still riding the high of defeating the alien robot. Beside him sat Karl and Sapnap, listening to him ramble. George was still sitting on Dream’s shoulder, and Dream didn’t even care – in fact, he found it comforting, the way George was cuddled up to his neck, gripping the collar of his jumpsuit with his little claws.
“Two months ago, if you had asked me to defeat a giant alien robot, I’d have told you to go fuck yourself,” Dream said, excitedly. He flapped his hands. “But I did it! Me! I’m still shaking. Like, did you see what I did out there? I grew to over four hundred feet tall!”
“You were heroic, one could say,” George joked, poking at Dream’s neck. Dream blushed. He lifted his head to see George in his peripheral vision, who was staring up at him with awe. “I especially loved how you saved those people on the bridge; it was a nice touch.”
“But did you see how strong he was? He completely ripped the arm off a three-hundred-foot-tall robot!” Sapnap added. “Now that was badass!”
“I liked the part where he grew,” Karl said. “The green lights were pretty.”
“Yeah, that was so cool, too!” Sapnap said. “I just wish … I don’t know? That I’d been able to do more? My fire didn’t even dent the robot.” He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.
“Oh, poor Sappy,” George teased, “couldn’t compete with the big, strong giant? No wonder you’re depressed.”
“Hey, I’m not depressed!” Sapnap snapped, “I’m just … tired.”
“Why are you tired? You didn’t do anything?” Karl said.
Sapnap growled.
“Okay! Let’s stop there!” Dream said, holding out a hand and stopping Sapnap from jumping Karl. His fingers wrapped around the tiny figure completely, and Dream winced, but Sapnap didn’t seem to care. He was more focused on getting to Karl, hopelessly fighting against Dream’s hand. Dream was just glad he didn’t light himself on fire while he was holding him. “Let’s just say everyone was a little rusty at first. I mean, I definitely didn’t start out that heroically … besides, we’ll all be back to our old selves soon enough, and Sapnap can go back to fighting George and being badass.”
“What … does that mean?” Karl asked sadly. “… ‘back to our old selves’?”
“What Karl is trying to say,” George said carefully, “is that we like the new Dream. I don’t – I mean, we don’t – want you to … leave us.”
“Well, that’s sweet,” Dream said, “but I have a normal life waiting for me, you know?”
“So, uh, tell me, exactly, how this ‘normal life’ thing works with you being a giant?” Sapnap asked, gesturing to Dream’s … everything.
“Well, you saw what I did out there, right?” Dream said. “I can … what did George call it? Size-shift? I went from a hundred feet to fifty feet, to four hundred feet tall in seconds. I must be able to shrink down even more, right? There’s something going on with the extraterrestrial energy I absorbed – there must be some way to control it. Besides, Quackity won’t rest until we figure out how to work it. We’re a team, after all … not that we aren’t, though,” Dream said sheepishly, gesturing to the three little monsters. “But I miss my old life, you know? I want to see my friends and family and fiancé again.”
“Maybe, then, we could meet them?” George asked tentatively.
“Really?” Dream said. “You guys would want to meet Quackity?”
“Oh, I want to meet him, alright,” Sapnap muttered, grinding his fist into his palm. Dream figured he wasn’t supposed to hear that, so he ignored it until: “Sure. But we would also want to meet your family. That’d be okay, right?”
“Of course!” Dream said. “My parents loved my old friends, and they’ll love you, too.”
-
Dream was able to feel the plane touching down. He was literally shaking with excitement.
“First stop, Salt Springs!” Bad said cheerfully. He leaned over the railing of the platform in the cargo plane, looking down on the monsters with a smile. “Dream, I called your family to let them know you were coming home. I also called the Salt Springs Police Department and told them not to shoot at you. You guys have until midnight, where we’ll meet back up to transport you guys back to base.”
Dream looked up at Bad from where he was hunched over in the cargo hold. The man wasn’t wearing his typical jetpack right now, instead he was just wearing his casual military uniform, his long hair was tied up in a bun, and a few loose strands framed his face. Now, Dream wasn’t stupid enough to call Bad a friend – he was still an infamous military general, and the one in charge of keeping the monsters locked up. But Dream also knew enough to know that Bad didn’t need to give them visitation times in the real world; he didn’t need to give them their freedom back. He could have forced the monsters to face off against the giant alien robot for no reward. Except he didn’t. Instead, he purposefully made a deal with the president so that his monsters could have more freedom, and that made all the difference.
“Thanks, Bad,” Dream smiled. He scooted out of the cargo hold after the ramp lowered, following Karl and Sapnap. George made a strange clicking sound and jumped from Dream’s shoulder to catch up with the other two, gliding with his wings.
After Dream got on the road, he reached up and stretched, feeling immediate relief. He looked around the area, quickly recognising the houses and road signs. The houses were pristine, the white picket fences were straight, and cars were parked out in front of every house. Everything was tinier than Dream remembered, and it was a little hard to get his bearings at first due to the new perspective he had (so high up in the air), but just being home made him feel warm inside. It helped that it was late, and the neighbourhood was empty of driving cars or people loitering, so Dream was able to step out onto the road and begin walking without fear of stepping on anyone.
“Whoa, this is … really nice,” George muttered. If Dream didn’t know better, he would guess that George looked a little self-conscious. “I didn’t know you came from such a … normal neighbourhood.”
“I did tell you,” Dream said, “that I had a normal life waiting for me. I wasn’t kidding. Now, come on. My parents’ house is this way.”
As they walked, Dream tried to coach the three little monsters on interacting with people in the outside world. After all, they had all been locked up for over a decade and hadn’t had normal interactions with others in a long, long time. Or for people like Karl, who had been locked up almost immediately and never had contact with the outside world, never.
“Okay, so, just remember, my family aren’t used to seeing anything … out of the ordinary, like … you,” Dream said, wincing, gesturing to George and his bug-like features, “or you …” He gestured to Sapnap and his demon characteristics, “or … you,” Dream pointed to Karl and his goopy body, “or even … me, now, I guess.” Dream sighed, trying to ignore how much of a freak he was now. “So just, you know, be cool. Don’t freak them out. Don’t break anything. Don’t set anything on fire. Don’t eat anything unless offered.” Dream gave a hard stare at each little monster in turn.
Karl pouted. “But what if I want to eat their car?”
“Karl, no!” Dream scolded.
Before he could say anything else, he was interrupted.
“Clay?”
Dream froze. He hadn’t heard that voice for two months, and he turned to find his mother standing on the front porch of her house. Dream hadn’t even realised how close they were to his parents’ house. His mother looked almost the same as she did on his wedding; her copper hair, which Dream had inherited, was curly and pulled up in a high bun. Her brown eyes were wide with surprise. But now he could see the large bags under her eyes, and how ragged she looked. Beside her, his father stepped out from inside the house, green eyes also wide. To the side of them were all Dream’s friends: Punz, Sam, and Sylvee. Seeing all his friends and family made Dream’s eyes begin to sting with tears. He was very careful as he kneeled on the front lawn, bending down to tentatively reach out to his parents. He winced when he saw just how large his hand was in comparison; it could curl completely around his mother. But instead of being cowed by his size, or thinking him a freak, his friends and family eagerly stepped forward to be within his hands for a hug – or rather, a mockery of a hug.
“Mom? Dad?” He said, “Punz, Sam, Sylvee?”
“It’s so good to see you again!” John, Dream’s father, said.
Helen, Dream’s mother, stepped back to get a better look at her child. Dream knew he looked very different from the last time she saw him, and he looked away, insecure. When his mother saw the rough state her son was in, though, she placed her hand over her mouth in emotion. “Oh dear … did they … experiment on you?”
“No, mom, I’m fine,” Dream said, giving a small smile. “I just got done fighting a giant alien robot – I’m allowed to look a little rough.” He laughed nervously when his mother gasped.
“They made you fight that thing?” Helen demanded. “We saw it on the news, and we were all so scared. We were lucky it was on Anastasia Island and not closer to home.”
“But I bet Dream gave it a good ass whooping,” Sam joked.
“Right?” Punz added. He looked toward Dream and whistled lowly. “I mean, at your size now, you must be insanely strong. No need to go to the gym at all.”
“His outfit could use a little fixing, though,” Sylvee commented. “But other than that, I think the white hair is cute. At least you didn’t lose any of your curl – oh. Who are they?” Sylvee pointed behind Dream, toward the three little monsters. Suddenly, his friends and family looked apprehensive. Dream pulled his hands away to gesture to his other, monster friends.
“It’s okay, they’re with me. These are my new friends – George, Karl, and Sapnap. The only one missing is Patches, but she’s too big to bring to the neighbourhood.” Dream pointed to each one in turn. They all smiled nervously and waved. Karl giggled. Dream looked back to his friends and family, finding someone was missing. “But … where’s Quackity?”
“He’s at work, sweetie,” Helen said, frowning. Dream could already guess what her opinion on that was.
“You know how he is about his career,” John shrugged.
“We all know,” Sam mumbled, at the same time George muttered: “Oh, of course.”
Dream watched as his old friends and his new friends stopped, turned to look at each other, and a mutual understanding flowed between them. Dream almost groaned. He did not need his friends and family ganging up on Quackity.
“Well,” Dream said, “we can’t celebrate without him. I’ll go get him if I have to.”
He stood up, being careful to put room between himself and his friends and family, so that he wouldn’t crush them. He was about to start walking when his mother called, “Clay, wait! What do I do with your friends while you’re gone?”
“Just put out some snacks! They’ll eat literally anything!” Dream said, waving flippantly. And then he was on his way to the St. Augustine’s weather and news station.
-
Once George was sure Dream was out of earshot, he turned to Dream’s friends and family. For a moment, he felt a yearning; he yearned for the normalcy that they had, the way they effortlessly accepted Dream and his giant-ness, and the way Dream wanted them around rather than George, Karl, and Sapnap. But that moment passed quickly, as he realised there was no use in wanting for things that weren’t possible. Instead, he hesitantly stepped forward, pushing his hair and antenna back in a nervous tic.
“So, we all agree that Quackity isn’t the … best for Dream?” George asked, trying his best to keep civil.
Sam – or who he assumed was Sam – snorted. The man had a kind face, short beard, and blond hair. He was also tall, probably six feet or a little taller. “He’s an asshole,” Sam said bluntly. “But I’m already assuming that Dream has waxed poetic about him to you guys?”
“Yeah, what else would they do, all locked up?” The shorter man, also one of Dream’s friends, asked.
“Punz!” The girl – Sylvee? – hissed.
“Nah, it’s good,” Sapnap said, shrugging. “I spend, like, ninety percent of my time watching anime or playing video games. There’s not much to do at Area Fifty-Something. Dream arriving was probably the most exciting thing to happen to us over the past few years.”
“You play games? Which games do you play?” Punz asked excitedly.
While Punz and Sapnap got into a passionate conversation about the best video games to play, which Sam and Sylvee joined – apparently George was surrounded by sweaty gamers – George turned to Dream’s parents, who were watching the exchange between monsters and Dream’s friends with fond looks. George had once been human before, and even though he wasn’t dating Dream, he still felt the nervous jitters one got before meeting a partner’s parents.
“I’m George,” he said, offering his hand, careful to angle his little claws away from them. “And Dream is my friend. He’s told us a lot about you guys. He was so excited to see you again.”
“Well,” Helen said, taking George’s offered hand, “it’s nice to have someone looking out for Clay.”
-
Quackity laughed at the joke his fellow new anchor cracked about the weather. “That’s hilarious, Charlie.” He turned back to the camera. “You know, that’s exactly the kind of down-home country humour I’m going to miss when I’m in Tampa.” He straightened his tie and smiled. “But unfortunately, this is Alexis García, signing off for the very last time. Good night, St. Augustine!”
Quackity held still as he kept smiling into the camera, until the director signaled to him.
“And … cut!” The director called.
There was a smattering of clapping throughout the studio, and Quackity stepped off his box and turned to the make-up artist who approached him to touch-up his looks. The woman was about Quackity’s height, if not a little shorter. She had long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Her name was Alyssa, and she was beautiful. Though she had a disinterested look on her face as she brought a make-up brush to his cheek, Quackity knew she was only playing hard to get. He grinned at her.
“Did you like that sign off?” He asked, “I just made it up on the fly –”
“Uh, Alexis?” An intern tapped Quackity on the shoulder. Quackity turned, only to find the intern towered over him. The boy looked way too young to be working in a news station, and he had a nervous air about him.
Quackity gave a sharp glare to the intern interrupting his conversation. “What?”
“You – you have a visitor on the roof. Um, standing by the roof … building? Uh – actually, it would just be easier to show you.”
Quackity looked at the intern in confusion. “Who would want to meet me on the roof?”
But nonetheless, he followed the intern to the stairs that led to the roof, and he gave the intern a confused look when the kid’s hands shook as they opened the access door. His confusion only grew when the intern squeaked out a “good luck!” before practically running away. But then he turned around, saw what stood next to the building, and his confusion was shocked away because there, standing at almost a hundred feet tall, was Dream.
His hair was a little different, his eyes looked too bright, and he was wearing a military green jumpsuit, but it was definitely his ex-fiancé, Dream.
Dream, who had disappeared two months ago, and never reappeared or reached out.
Dream, who was a giant now, apparently.
-
Dream felt happy butterflies in his stomach when he saw Quackity. It had been difficult to get a hold of someone who could reach out to Quackity, but after talking to the manager of the news station building – who had come out to see what the ruckus was about, seeing as how half of his employees were staring, gaping at the scene outside their windows – he was able to wait outside the building while someone grabbed his fiancé and brought him to the roof. The building only came up to his waist, so he carefully got down on his knees, so that he could see Quackity face-to-face.
It took a while, but finally, Dream saw the access door open to the roof, and Quackity stepped out. He looked handsome, as always. Unlike his mother, who looked like she hadn’t gotten any sleep the past month, Quackity looked well put together. His suit was impeccable, his hair was gelled back, and his brown eyes shone in the moonlight.
Dream winced. He knew what he looked like, especially after his fight with the robot. But he knew Quackity could look past that … hoped he could look past that. After all, he was going to figure out a way to get back to normal. Soon, he would be back to his normal life, with normal friends, and a normal size. Though, he would miss George, Karl, Patches, and Sapnap – but … normal was better. Right?
“Yeah,” Dream agreed with Quackity, “I am … big. But I’m still me. I’m still the same guy you fell in love with.”
“Except you did just destroy the Bridge of Lions,” Quackity said, throwing his hands out helplessly. His eyes were wide, his breathing unsteady. He took a couple steps back from the edge of the building, away from Dream, and Dream’s heart sunk.
“Well, but that was the only way I was going to stop that giant robot,” Dream said meekly, remembering how much property damage he had caused because of his size alone. Then he remembered how the three little monsters had cheered him on and praised him for defeating the alien robot. He smiled softly at the memory, suddenly proud. “I mean, did you ever think I could do something like that?”
“No,” Quackity said, deadpan, “I didn’t. I can say it never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, occurred to me.”
Quackity gave Dream a ‘what the fuck’ look and Dream grimaced.
“Look, I know this is a little weird,” Dream said. Then looked down at himself, kneeling, just so he could be eye-to-eye with a building. He laughed self depreciatingly. “Okay, it’s a lot weird. But we’ll figure it out! I’m not stuck like … this.” Dream gestured to his body. “I can size-shift. If I can figure out how to do it on command, I can be … normal again. And I know that, together, we can find a way to get me back to normal.”
“Dream,” Quackity said, like he was talking to a child, “Try and look at this from my perspective. I have an audience that depends on me for news, weather, sports, and heart-warming fluff pieces. So … you expect me to put all that on hold while you try to undo this thing that happened to you? That I had absolutely nothing to do with?”
“Yes,” Dream said, frowning. Quackity sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “That’s exactly what I expect. What – what about the life we always talked about? Don’t you still want that?”
“Of course!” Quackity reassured. But then he pulled the rug out from beneath Dream’s feet: “I just … don’t see how I can have that with you.”
Quackity winced.
“Quackity,” Dream said, voice thick. “Please, don’t do this.”
“You have to face the facts, Dream,” Quackity said seriously. “Please don’t crush me for saying this, but I’m not looking to get married and spend the rest of my life in someone else’s shadow. And … you’re casting a pretty big shadow. I’m sorry, but it’s over.” Quackity walked back to the access door and opened it before turning back to Dream. “Good luck figuring out … all of that.”
-
Dream didn’t want to go back to his parents’ house and embarrass himself in front of everyone by admitting he was dumped by his fiancé. It was a good thing, then, that by the time he got back, the cargo plane was already back and ready to go. Dream wiped away his tears so that no one saw, hugged his parents and friends one last time – or what passed for a hug at his freakish height – and then climbed into the plane to go … home? What else was he supposed to call the military base that had held him prisoner for two months and would now probably hold him forever.
He wasn’t really in the mood to talk, but it seemed like the three little monsters were.
“Wow! Your friends and parents are a lot nicer than Quack …” Sapnap glanced over at George, who was giving Sapnap a sharp glare. “I mean, your friends and parents were really nice. Punz, Sam, and Sylvee were great to talk to about video games. They didn’t even treat us like monsters – they treated us like people.”
“Right,” Dream said, voice hollow, “Monsters.”
“Anyway, how was Quackity?” George asked.
For a few moments, Dream was silent. His heart still felt broken. But then he looked at the three little monsters, who had stuck with him throughout the two months of imprisonment – who hadn’t treated him any differently for being a freak – and rage filled him.
“Quackity is a selfish jerk,” he spat.
“No!” Karl gasped.
“Yes!” Dream said, even angrier. “All that talk about ‘us’ – ‘I’m so proud of us,’ and ‘us just got a job in Tampa’ – there is no ‘us’! There was only Quackity. Why did I need to get hit by a meteor and turn into a freak to see that? I was such an idiot!” Dream stopped when he felt tears starting down his cheeks, and he hunched over more, hiding his face in his hands.
He felt a small touch on his ankle. When he looked down, George was staring at him with an intensity that was frightening. “You are not a freak,” George said firmly.
“You guys said it yourselves – we’re all monsters,” Dream said. “I’m a monster. I was stupid to ever think I could go back to a normal life.”
“Maybe you can’t go back go a normal life, but … is that really that bad?” Sapnap said hesitantly. “I mean, we’ve all established that Quackity is an asshole. But your parents, your other friends – they’re awesome. They welcome you just how you are. And you have us, too.”
“That’s right,” George said. “You have us. You have … you have a new life. Look at what you’ve done so far: you saved Florida and probably the entirety of America from a giant alien robot!”
Dream wiped at his tears and sniffled.
“You know what … you’re right,” he said. “Why did I ever think life with Quackity would be so great, anyway? I mean, meeting you guys? Amazing! George, you can crawl up walls and build a supercomputer out of a pizza box, a couple of stray wires, and radio antenna. And Sapnap – you’re from a completely different universe, can breathe fire, and you’re literally so badass!” Sapnap puffed his chest out in pride. Dream turned to Karl. “And Karl, you … you’re near indestructible. I mean, who else could be completely ripped in half and smushed like a pancake and end up without a single scratch?”
“Sapnap?” Karl guessed.
“No, you!” Dream said, laughing.
“Amazing!” Karl exclaimed.
“Don’t short-change yourself, either,” George said.
“Oh, I’m not going to second-guess myself ever again!” Dream said, riled up now. “I mean, look what I’ve done without Quackity. Fighting an alien robot? That was me, not him. And that was amazing!”
The three little monsters all agreed and cheered.
Dream opened his mouth to thank the others, when suddenly, the cargo plane shuddered violently. Dream hit his head on the ceiling and hissed. That was going to leave a dent in the metal. The three little monsters all yelled-out and fell to the floor. The intercom crackled and the pilot’s voice came through: “We’re, uh, experiencing some moderate –” the plane shook violently again, dropping through the air “– okay, we’re experiencing severe turbulence. Weather’s all clear, but it looks like we have interference from another aircraft, so I’m going to perform an emergency landing.”
“What would another aircraft –” Dream didn’t get to finish his sentence because he experienced the sudden feeling of his stomach dropping, and despite there being no windows in the cargo plane to see outside, he knew what that meant. He lunged forward to grab his friends, scooping them up in his giant hands, holding them to his chest in the hopes that he could keep them safe.
Then there was a crash, the sound of metal ripping, a bright light, and everything went dark.
If I remember right the idea was kickstarted by @baka-monarch talking about a tiny Tommy mermaid living in symbiose Dream
I really like the idea of sea monster sized mermaids :) Here Dream is probably a bit to close to the shore, having followed these poachers after he noticed Tommy missing, or something like that!
Dream was around six cycles old when he started to realise, he … wasn’t quite like his mama.
Sure, they both had tails. But Dream’s tail was eel-like, armoured, and a mottled green. His mama’s tail was thicker, a faint reddish brown, and had a large tail fin that billowed out gracefully. They both had curly hair. Except Dream’s hair was a dark blond, almost copper, and mostly curled at the ends rather than all the way through. His mama’s hair was a stark white and curly all over. They both had claws. But Dream’s claws were long and jagged and black, and he had webs between his fingers that helped him swim faster. His mama’s claws were shorter and pale, and she didn’t have the webs. They both had sharp teeth. Except Dream’s teeth were jagged, like a shark, and grew back almost instantly when he lost them. His mama couldn’t grow back her teeth.
They had far more things in difference than in common.
And there was also the fact that Dream was as big as his mama, and he was only six cycles old.
At first, Dream hadn’t noticed. He was young and caught up in exploring the world around him. He loved to chase the little crabs in the sand and bite through their armour, getting to the juicy meat inside. He enjoyed swimming around the caves they visited. He wanted to spend his days hunting and swimming like a big boy. He wanted to learn everything he could about the world around him. It was like everything was fine, and then one day, the veil was peeled back from his eyes, and he finally noticed that he and his mama weren’t the same. His mama always called him her “little guppy” and “little mer,” but Dream was starting to suspect that he wasn’t a regular mer pup, and never had been.
It was getting late, and his mama had come back from the market. Dream greeted her at the opening to their cave, snuggling under her chin like a pup. His mama carded her claws through his hair, scratching at his scalp, and Dream purred.
That was another thing his mama couldn’t do.
Instead, she chirped in response.
She smelled happy.
Another thing that was different about them.
“I always love when my little guppy greets me!” His mama said, pressing kisses to his cheeks and forehead. “I missed my little mer so much today!”
Dream let his mama put her bags away before hugging his tail to his chest, feeling insecure. He glanced over at his mama, who looked so different from him, and who was already smaller than him at six cycles old. Dream was only now realising that it wasn’t normal, and it made him feel shameful and stupid for not seeing it before.
“Mama,” Dream said sadly, “I’m not a mer, am I?”
His mama froze. “Who told you?” She asked. “Did one of the mers from the village come by? I told them not to come by unless I was here, they’re not supposed to see –” She stopped suddenly, as if realising what she was about to say.
“Me,” Dream finished. “Because I’m not a mer.”
His mama looked spooked. There was a tangy scent in the water, like a deep-rooted fear. Dream had always enjoyed being able to smell emotions – he loved when his mama smelled happy, safe, warm – but he didn’t like the fear that he smelled now. He wondered whether his mama was scared of others finding out about Dream, or if … or if she was scared of him.
“Mama,” he said again, tears coming to his eyes.
“Oh, my little Daydream,” his mama said, remorseful. She swam closer and wrapped her arms around him in an embrace, but he was bigger than her, and her arms just barely came all the way around him. It only made Dream cry harder in response. “It’s okay … you’re right, you’re not a mer. But you’re still my pup. You’re still my son.”
“What am I?” Dream sniffled.
“My son,” his mama repeated.
“No,” Dream said, “what am I?”
It was here that his mama hesitated, before finally saying with a sigh: “a siren.”
It was Dream’s turn to freeze.
Now, Dream didn’t get to go into the village often. He hadn’t gone into the village in over a cycle, since he started growing bigger than his mama. He hadn’t understood why his mama kept him isolated, but now he knew. Even he could remember the stories the villagers told him as a young pup, the stories about giant sirens and how bloodthirsty they were, how they could wipe out entire mer settlements in mere minutes. He remembered the haunted look on one of the elder’s faces when she described the siren she once saw, how they were almost a hundred feet long, violent, and how she barely escaped with her life.
“A siren?” Dream echoed; his voice was raspy. “I’m a monster?”
“No!” His mama scolded, loudly, and Dream flinched back. Her face did something complicated, and the scent in the water went sour. “No,” she said again, softer. “You’re not a monster, Daydream.”
“But you said –”
“That you’re a siren, not a monster,” his mama said clearly. “It’s true, sirens are known to … to hurt mers. But not all sirens are monsters. You’re certainly not; you’re just a pup. It’s how you’re raised, not what you are, that makes you who you are. And I know that I raised my little guppy to be a good man. You would never hurt another mer. Do you understand?”
Dream sniffled. He still didn’t feel so sure about it, knowing he was a siren, and that so many mers would be frightened of him if they saw him, but he did know his mama would never hurt him on purpose. She may have lied to him about what he was, but she genuinely loved him.
“I do,” he finally said.
“And I want you to know that no matter what size you grow to, no matter what you are,” his mama said, “that I will always love you, no matter what.”
Dream couldn’t help himself – he dove back into his mama’s arms, no matter the fact that his mama struggled to hug him. He snuggled under her chin again, purring. “I love you too, mama.”
