"You may relax. I am with you," Top Moments said from inside her hood.
Jenny flew nervously through the pitch-black tunnels, with her hands clutched to her chest and her eye-flashlights at max brightness. It didn't take long for them to fly past the last of the wall creatures that had made their way past the pale giants that were supposed to be keeping them out.
Turning the corner, Jenny stopped and squealed when she almost ran into a tree branch that stuck out from the side.
"You surprise me, Jenny," Top Moments commented.
"Ughh… I don't like it when I don't know what's going on," Jenny timidly defended herself.
"Isn't that the point of an adventure?" he asked in return.
Jenny thought about his question while she flew, then pinched her eyes shut and answered.
"Maybe I'm just not suited for-"
"-Collision warning!" Top Moments interrupted her.
Jenny opened her eyes wide and saw a dark, crooked tower ahead. The tunnel was about to open up into another spacious cavern, featuring a settlement this time. Before she could crash into the tower, Jenny teleported herself and her companion past it, ending up on the other side. Jenny eliminated her momentum by spinning around in the air, then slowed down until she was properly oriented again.
"What are… Did you just…" Top Moments stuttered at his first-ever experience of being teleported.
"This looks like a nice place," a delighted Jenny noted with her fingers pressed together, having completely forgotten about her fear.
She curiously observed the settlement from above.
There were lights, just like the city from her first dream. And the buildings looked manmade, even though they were crooked and forged out of stone. There was nobody out on the streets, but the place looked like it was built for humans.
"C'mon! Let's have a look!" Jenny enthusiastically said as she dropped down to the street.
When her feet touched the ground, Top Moments left her hood and flew on his own. This town wasn't very big, and the tower she almost crashed into was the only tall building here. If this place existed in Jenny's world, it would look culturally out of place. But down here, it almost felt like a return to civilization.
"Is this the place you seek?" Top Moments asked.
"No…" Jenny replied as she looked around.
There was only one person out on the street. A human-looking figure, different from the wall creatures and giant guardians. The figure looked at Jenny with just as much trepidation as she had for them. They had pale skin, and their face looked slightly uncanny, like the proportions were slightly off. But all the features were there, including eyes. The figure looked otherwise perfectly civilized, and Jenny didn't feel any hostility coming from it.
Before she could say anything, a door opened behind her and Jenny looked back. There stood a hooded figure, and Jenny couldn't tell if they were the same species as the other one. For some reason, this one scared her a little more.
"I've been expecting you two," the figure said with a typical old lady voice.
Jenny didn't say anything and pointed at herself with a scared and questioning look on her face.
"Top Moments, and January Seven," the figure added.
Jenny perked up in shock, and Top Moments gave her a curious glance.
"How do you know that name?" Jenny asked her with an angry look.
"Come, come…" the old lady said, turning around and walking back inside the tower interior.
"I know all. And I can tell you what even you don't know."
Jenny and Top moments glanced at each other, then gave each other a nod and followed the lady inside. The interior looked like a typical witch abode. Jenny assumed the lady was a witch or something like that. It was surprising that seemingly the most important building in this small city was her place.
"How did you know my… name?" Jenny repeated her question as she scanned the room.
"A vision. It told me you would come. It told me your names."
Jenny frowned at her.
"I see you don't like it. Do you prefer Jenny?" the lady followed up.
Jenny couldn't really be bothered showing surprise anymore and nodded. She could still spot that same confused look on Top Moments' face, though.
"It's my… model name… from long ago," she told both Top Moments and the old lady.
Describing herself as a "model" left a bad taste in her mouth. This was the kind of stuff she wanted to leave behind with her new life.
"I've never had a dreamer down here before," the old lady said as she poured herself a cup of tea.
"Most visitors to the dream, darkskins like yourself, come down the Great Steps. And even that is a rare occasion."
Jenny checked herself out in surprise. She always considered herself to have relatively pale skin. But compared to the people in the tunnels, everyone from her world had dark skin.
"The Great Steps are real?" Top Moments asked.
"This very town exists at the bottom of the first step," she replied.
Jenny approached the two with a confused look.
"They lead to the old world, where you and the Great Ones come from," she said, pointing at Jenny.
"You're saying there's a way to enter the dream without dreaming?" Jenny asked.
"The steps connect our world with the old world in an impossible manner, like the Sleeping God. But they lead to a perilous place that no-one knows."
The lady sat down at a table in the center of the room and gestured her hand to invite Jenny to sit across. The table had an orb embedded in the center.
"No one who climbs them ever comes back. It is said you are greeted on the other side by an ocean of flames."
"Perhaps you could brave the challenge, but I wouldn't advise it."
Jenny sat down with a grumpy look on her face. Top Moments floated near her shoulder the entire time. He seemed relaxed enough.
"Touch the orb with me, and I will tell you anything you wish to know," the old lady said.
Jenny complied. The old lady took off her hood to show her strange, albino face, like the other person outside, then put her hand on top of Jenny's hand on the orb.
"What would you like to know?"
Jenny had to think about that. What was the point of asking the old lady that might not be real, if the world around her was real?
What about her future? Did she really want to know when she would die? It would give her anxiety for sure, even if this was a scam.
"Did somebody- or something dangerous come through this place before us?" Jenny asked.
Jenny expected the lady to have to need a moment. To have to pretend to receive a signal from the cosmos, but no, she responded immediately with an affirmative nod.
"Yes. Come He did, not long ago," the lady spoke.
Jenny raised her eyebrows and looked at her floating companion.
"What happened? This place looks peaceful," Top Moments asked.
The old lady dismissively waved his question away.
"I would let no harm which announces itself befall my people," she said.
Jenny gave Top Moments a confused look, and he gave her one back.
"I think that means she told everybody to hide inside their homes," he told Jenny.
The old lady observed the two with an amused look on her strange face and did not correct his statement.
"Who is He?" Jenny asked her next question.
Again, the lady did not bother her orb and immediately answered.
"I cannot give you a complete answer, for the information in my visions comes to me in pieces, and the pieces are not complete."
"But the pieces that are there, are the absolute truth."
Jenny and Top Moments frowned together.
"Okay…"
The old lady exhaled deeply.
"There exist many terrible things, out there in the cosmos. Chief among them are the Great Ones," she explained.
"He's a Great One?" Jenny eagerly asked.
The old lady ignored Jenny's question and continued.
"In ancient times, a most awful deity crawled the dreamlands in terror. Hiding in plain sight, looking like you and me."
"Crawling Chaos," Top Moments muttered with a dark tone.
"I remember it well. His nightmare-inducing visit, thousands of years ago," the old lady continued.
"You're thousands of years old?" Jenny asked in surprise.
The old lady nodded. Top Moments didn't seem as surprised.
"That was the first time I ever saw a vision of the future," she continued.
"And I will never forget the horrifying stench that knocked me awake."
Jenny and Top Moments listened to her story with sharp focus.
"Never again has a vision smelled as vile as it did that night," the old lady explained.
"And it happened again?" Top moments asked.
The old lady shook her head.
"Something has changed," she said.
"This time, He smelled empty. Like whatever was once there had already moved on, leaving an empty husk behind."
Top Moments asked: "Then how do you know for sure it's really Him?"
The old lady replied: "Make no mistake, my dear. With a stench like His, even the faintest trace is unmistakable."
"Every living thing has a unique smell, including you two."
Jenny shuddered, raised her arm and tried smelling her armpit.
After some silence, the old lady took her turn to ask.
"You seek to face Him?"
Jenny and Top Moments gave each other a glance, then answered simultaneously.
"Yes."
"Goodness, no."
Followed by another surprised shared glance.
"But He's still hurting people!" Jenny argued towards her companion, who was left dumbfounded.
The old lady chuckled, then asked Jenny: "And you mean to clean up the left-behind mess of the gods?"
Jenny looked down at her lap, considering whether it was even her place to do so.
"Sweet girl. Would you like to know how this dream will end?" the lady asked her.
Jenny was surprised to hear that question. Could the old lady see into the future? Jenny couldn't imagine being happy knowing its conclusion. She'd be scared about acting differently and changing the outcome. She shook her head with a frown.
"Then I've told you everything about the one you seek."
Jenny looked shortly disappointed, then remembered something else she wanted to ask and reached into her pocket. Before she could retrieve her drawing of the city, the old lady held out her hand and stopped her.
"The city from your vision is close. Follow the tunnel like you have, and you will find it," she said.
Jenny gave her a surprised look and returned her hand to her lap.
"You were shown it in a vision of your own, were you not?" the old lady asked.
Jenny hesitantly nodded. She never really considered it a 'vision', though.
"Then you have done well to walk this path," the old lady said.
Jenny smiled.
"Yes, yes. Very well indeed. I think it's time Jenny and I have a chat about that," Top Moments said impatiently.
Jenny looked up at him in surprise.
"Don't be in such a rush! I don't get many visitors here," the old lady said.
"I can tell you other things. Things about your future. How about love and friendship?" the old lady said with a chuckle.
Top Moments rolled his eyes.
Jenny perked up in innocent excitement. She couldn't refuse her favorite topic so easily. Knowing what's ahead couldn't be so bad, right?
Jenny nodded. The old lady closed her eyes, and after a moment, she grinned. After another moment, her facial expression turned more serious. Then she opened her eyes again.
"Your friends love you very much, and I see you love them back."
Jenny got jolly when she heard that, even though that information wasn't exactly new to her.
"One of them loves you more than the others."
Jenny blushed and started wiggling her feet.
"And you will lose one of them very soon."
Jenny stopped wiggling her feet, and her face fell into a cold despair.
"Does that include me?" Top Moments asked the old lady.
"I can't see that, my dear. This vision is much further away from me," she responded.
"I'll lose a friend? How? Which one?" Jenny asked, standing up out of her chair in a panic.
"It's as I said… this topic is so far removed from the here and now, what I told you is all I can see," the old lady replied.
Jenny looked defeated, almost regretting hearing the information. What if it was real? Was one of her friends going to die soon? If this whole dream world was fabricated by her mind, there'd be no way to ever tell. Jenny didn't want to hear any more and stormed outside.
♦
It wasn't hard to find Jenny outside. She was sulking on top of a house next to the tower. It wasn't too tall for Top Moments to scale, but he had to build up some momentum to float high enough.
"There you… are…" he said as he landed next to Jenny.
She was clearly upset about the 'fortune' she'd just been told. Top Moments tried to think of what to say to her that might cheer her up.
"Do you think… she was telling the truth?" Jenny asked.
Top Moments sat down next to her, even though he had no legs.
"I don't know what to make of it…" he replied.
"She knew our names. I don't know how else to explain that…"
He turned his body and looked at Jenny. She returned a glance and they looked each other in the eyes.
Top Moments spoke: "One of your friends is massively in love with you! How exciting!"
Jenny pouted and buried her face in her arms in response.
"That's not what she said!"
"Ah! You are most correct! Maybe they really like you as a friend!" Top Moments responded.
He paused for a bit, watching Jenny still with her face buried in her arms, not very cheerful.
"One of your friends will die a horrible death soon! How terrible!"
…
"I know what you're doing…" Jenny mumbled through her arm.
She put her arms down again and looked at Top Moments with a sad face.
"What should I do, then? Just forget about it?"
"Maybe…" Top Moments replied.
"Or maybe the future has changed just from you hearing it."
"Yeah…" Jenny said, looking at the cavern wall in the distance.
There was indeed a staircase carved into the wall. That must be the Great Steps mentioned before. Most perilous to traverse, according to the old lady.
Top Moments wondered what would happen if Jenny went through. Would she find her 'real' body? Asleep and dreaming? Was this body of hers a mere copy?
"What was the point of all that, anyway? She didn't even ask for payment," Jenny asked.
"What, the fortune telling?" Top Moments asked.
Jenny nodded.
"Some people are simply unknowable," he replied quickly.
"You're probably right," Jenny said, looking sobered up.
"Same goes for you," he said.
Jenny gave him a questioning look.
"I never asked. Why do you want to find that city?" he asked.
Jenny looked down at the base of the tower and Top Moments followed her gaze. Depictions of the Great Ones were engraved on the side of the tower, much like you'd find anywhere in the dreamlands.
"Curiosity, I guess…"
"When I came here, I thought it was all an innocent dream, and I could do whatever I wanted. So, I wanted to go on an adventure."
"Has that changed?" Top Moments asked.
"I don't know… maybe not…" Jenny said.
She looked at the depiction of Nyarlathotep on the side of the tower.
"The people there… they were screaming in their sleep…"
This gave Top Moments some pause.
"My dear…"
He flew in front of Jenny to get a better look at her face.
"Do you understand the implication of what the old lady told us?"
Jenny looked at him like she understood it very well.
"You don't have to come with me all the way," Jenny said.
Jenny was without a doubt the most impressive being he'd ever met. Even if the real Jenny was out there in the old world, and this was just an astral projection.
But to face the most awful Great One in the history of the dreamlands…
"Jenny, I…"
"In the short time I've known you, I have come to learn just how incredible you are. But some things in this universe are absolute."
He repeatedly poked his head in the direction of the engravings.
"THEY are absolute! They bend matters into Their desired conclusion!"
"You and I…"
He lightly bumped into Jenny.
"…are bendable…"
Jenny stood up, made a strained expression and started hopping up and down in place.
"But I can't let it go…"
"It's just a dream! I'll be fine! C'mon… help me find it!"
Top Moments considered if he had any ability at all to convince her not to go. Her demeanor went from sulky to completely bratty in a matter of seconds.
"You're not curious at all?" Jenny asked him.
"I… can't say I'm not… It's what one calls morbid curiosity," Top Moments hesitantly replied.
He observed Jenny one more time, hopping in place like a child throwing a tantrum.
"You… really are lovable, aren't you, my dear?" he asked her.
To that, Jenny's attitude changed again, from bratty to humbled.
"Y-You think so?" she asked with red cheeks.
Top moments flew around her as he talked.
"I saw it in the way you treated the creatures on the wall. Even though you feared them, you didn't want to harm them."
"This quest of yours, too, is heroic. You wish to save the people in that city even though they are not your people."
Jenny's mood changed to happy, and she hopped again.
He continued: "I still think you are in over your head, but…"
"…I have no place to be but by your side."
Jenny took a step back and gracefully bowed to her companion, offering him a place on her shoulder. When he took it, Jenny put her hood back over her head and turned her hair blue, rising into the air.
Before she departed to the city of her vision, she looked back at the crooked town one last time. They were being watched by three smaller inhabitants, probably children. The sight of them startled Jenny. Top Moments could tell.
No matter. Jenny smiled and saluted the children while she stood in the air, and the children saluted her back. Then, she turned around and blasted off into the tunnel ahead.
♦
It was the morning of the hearing, and Plural drove her car onto Jenny's driveway. Saturn was already there, leaning against the wall outside, he looked stressed.
"Where's Jenny?" Tatters asked.
"Dunno…" Plural said as she put the car in park and turned it off.
Saturn was approaching the car as they exited.
"She's not answering the door," he said, pointing back with his thumb.
That gave Plural a bad feeling. They were still on time, but this sounded like she might not even be home.
"Tried calling her?" she asked.
"Guess I'll try that now," Saturn said as he pulled out his phone.
The three were dressed in formal clothes. Today was the first hearing about the Dark Jenny incident and the destruction of Tatters' hometown. Saturn and Plural already owned suitable clothes, and Tatters was wearing some of Plural's stuff, as she wouldn't ever wear anything like this again. The plan was to pick up Jenny, then Circus, then go to the court building.
The phone rang for too long, and Saturn gave the other two a worried look. After thirty seconds, he put the phone down.
"Now what? She's the star of the show," he said.
"Uhm, and our dear friend! What if something's wrong? Aren't you worried?" Plural asked.
"She's probably fighting an alien or something," he said dismissively.
"Yeah? What if she's inside, and something's wrong with her?" Plural retorted.
Saturn made a difficult face and thought about what that meant. If there really was something wrong with Jenny, there'd be no way to help her.
"This place opens for her body, right?" Plural asked as she approached the front door, which didn't open automatically like it did for Jenny. The only time it did was back when they were carrying her unconscious body home from the dark woods.
"Should we break in?" Tatters suggested.
Plural nodded.
"Hey! Seriously? We're breaking into her house? Doesn't this place have, like, crazy security?" Saturn complained.
Tatters froze for a second, then opened the boot of Plural's car to grab two blankets.
"I'll go in first."
She wrapped the blankets around her shoulders and over her head, giving her two layers, then walked over to the front door while the other two watched her with nervous anticipation. Her intention was clear. She wanted to use her power on the outer blanket to walk through the door, then use it as a shield against any security countermeasures.
"At least go through the glass door at the back…" Saturn fairly suggested, considering the human-sized hole that would be left behind.
Tatters complied, and the three made their way to Jenny's backyard.
With the outer blanket glowing blue and the inner one pink, she walked through the glass door and phased right through it. Every piece of glass she touched was cleanly erased, without even forming any cracks in the remaining panel. Saturn and Plural braced themselves for whatever was about to happen, but nothing really happened at all.
When they opened their eyes, they saw Tatters walking around the living room with her pink glowing blanket. Saturn and Plural approached the edge of the new entrance to Jenny's house and looked around the walls and ceiling to see if they could see anything suspicious.
"There's nothing," Tatters said as she removed the blanket from her head.
"Maybe she doesn't have any security after all," Saturn said, stepping into the living room.
"Or maybe we're whitelisted or something…"
Plural cringed as she watched Tatters take off the blanket completely, and Saturn joining her in the living room.
"Coming?" Saturn asked her impatiently.
Plural swallowed and stepped inside the house with them.
"Or… maybe Jenny's still inside, and it's not armed," she said.
The three made their way upstairs and to Jenny's bedroom door, which was closed. Saturn made an attempt to knock, in response to which Plural gave him a frown before opening the door anyway.
Inside, on the bed, was Jenny. She looked comfortable enough, plugged into her charger. The charger showed a green light, suggesting she was fully charged, but she was still hibernating way past her usual wakeup time. Not to mention the agreed upon pickup time for the hearing.
"Sorry Jen! But we're late and you're already dressed!" Plural said as she walked over and lightly slapped Jenny's cheeks. This continued for a bit while Tatters examined the charger setup and Saturn sat down on the other side of the bed.
Jenny wasn't responding.
"Damn it! What now? Is this supposed to wake her up?" Plural asked.
"I dunno… I think she's supposed to wake up on her own," Saturn said anxiously.
Their eyes went to the charger that was plugged into the side of her head. Plural knew from having plugged it in once before that the cable didn't lock, and she'd be able to pull it out just like that. In fact, she did plug it in and out a couple of times back then, because she wasn't sure if she was plugging it in correctly.
"I'm gonna do it…" Plural said.
Without any hesitation, Plural pulled the cable out.
It came out as easily and cleanly as a phone charger cable, suggesting it wasn't a problem. The green light on the charger also faded, but Jenny didn't wake up. Saturn tapped his finger on Jenny's forehead some more, but she didn't respond. The three looked at each other in disbelief.
"Now what?"