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Chapter Text

September – 10 Months Post-Xanadu

Richard Turner stood just outside the door to his client’s basement in a quiet Florida suburb, the light of the sunset reflecting off his red hair and pale, narrow face as he checked his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes.  A teenaged girl and a middle-aged woman stood in front of him, sharing his anxious anticipation.

And why shouldn’t they?  This was set to be one of his most dangerous cases yet.

“You’re one hundred percent certain those manacles were made of actual silver, Mrs. Swindoll?”  He asked, glancing up through the window at the horizon, where the sun stood, half-hidden.  Try as he might, he just couldn’t appreciate the brilliant orange sky when he knew what nightfall meant.

“I told you before, the smith said it was good material when we brought it to him,” the woman replied.  “It definitely cost enough,” she mumbled.  “We had to take out a small loan to afford it.  And then it just didn’t work.”  She shook her head.  “No, that’s not it.  The silver definitely hurt him, but the spell to cure him…”

He patted her on the shoulder.  “The Xanadu curse can be tricky; if my hunch is right, you’re essentially dealing with two curses at once, here.  But if this works, you won’t need the silver any more after this.” 

“I’ve looked up a few other precious metal dealers,” Richard continued, glancing back at his watch, then the sunset once more, as the shadows stretched longer.  A faded hint of the full moon could be seen behind the clouds.   “At least one of them should pay a good rate for the manacles once we’re done.  I’m more concerned about how well they’ll hold through the night.”

“They held the first time we tried,” Mrs. Swindoll said, before shaking her head.  “But when it didn’t work, I replaced them with steel, until tonight.  I couldn’t stand to see him in constant pain, even when he’d gone full wolf.”

Mrs. Swindoll reached for a light switch, turning on the weaker, artificial light as the last of the natural light finally faded.  Richard grit his teeth and took a deep breath, waiting for the inevitable.

A moment later, he heard a man’s pained scream coming from the basement.  More screams, increasingly animalistic, followed, until at last, a long howl rang out.  It was followed by another, more pained howl, several whimpers, the rattling of chains and scratching and shuffling of claws against concrete.

He was chained, they’d be fine.  He was chained, they’d be fine!  He was chained!  They’d be fine!

Richard’s heart was pounding in his chest.  Chained or not, this was the first time he’d be treating a victim of the Xanadu curse that would be actively hostile.  And what he’d read up on the victim’s strength hadn’t been comforting, either.  He tried not to let his fear show, taking a few deep breaths.

“Alright,” he said.  “Jodi, Mrs. Swindoll are you ready?”

When they nodded, he unlocked the door to the basement.  The creak of the wooden steps was barely audible under the much louder whimpering and scratching sounds.  The beast below, however, seemed to hear it just fine; it went silent for a moment, listening as they climbed further down the stairs, before letting out a low, loud growl, still carrying a hint of a pained whimper.

When he got to the bottom of the steps, even before he turned the lights on, Richard could see the gleam of yellow eyes and flashing fangs in the moonlight.   The wolf barked furiously at him, the chains rattling and straining to hold the beast back at the far end of the room.

If every instinct in Richard’s body had already been screaming at him to turn and run when the lights were off, the beast that stood before him when the lights were turned on made his heart stop.  The werewolf stood a good two feet taller than Richard, even while hunched over, its powerful muscles rippled beneath the coarse gray fur with every move it made, and its claws had carved gashes into the concrete floor.  It lunged at the three from the end of its chains, before whimpering as a burning, hissing sound came from the manacles along its wrists and ankles.  Richard could’ve sworn he saw a bit of smoke rising from them. 

He did his best to ignore the pounding in his chest, and the streams of sweat pouring from every pore as he gripped the book in his hands tighter, telling himself that the chains would hold.  They had to.

He opened the book, a novel: Moonlight: A Second Phase.  It was the origin of this particular breed of werewolf, and the only entry in its series with the critical spell.

“Alright, Jodi,” he shouted to the teenager, trying to make himself heard over the wolf’s snarling.  “I’m going to read my half of the spell, and you read yours!”

The girl nodded.  “Louis Garrison,” she called.  “Where are you?  It’s time to come home!”

Richard chanted the spell in the text in front of him, a pseudo-Latin language whose text translated to “O wolf, hear your True name.  O man, heed the call of those that love you.  O wolf, be banished.  O man, come forth.”

The wolf wretched, and whimpered, before lashing out, the chains creaking and straining, its barks growing more furious, its teeth a blur of motion.  Both Richard and Jodi gasped and recoiled, before quickly recovering.

Richard continued his chant, doing his best to keep his breathing steady, even as he backed away.

“Louis Garrison,” Jodi shouted.  “Open your eyes, the dawn is coming!”

The wolf whimpered, and bit at one of the manacles around its front legs, only to recoil, smoke rising from where its mouth has touched the silver.  It shook off the pain, before biting at its own paw.  Richard’s eyes widened.  Was it so desperate to break free it would try to tear off its own limb?

“Stop!”  Mrs. Swindoll screamed, rushing for the wolf.  Richard held her back with his free hand, doing his best to keep repeating the chant.

She grabbed onto Richard’s shirt, shaking him.  “He’s in so much pain!  Stop!  I don’t care if he’s a wolf, I can’t watch him do this to himself.”

Richard fumbled a few words, but continued the chant, silently praying that a few minor mistakes wouldn’t ruin everything.  As long as they could end this before the wolf bit off its own paw…

“Louis Garrison,” Jodi shouted, “Heed the call of one who loves you!  Come home, and rest your weary heart!  Come home, and be free of that cursed hide!”

The wolf shuddered one last time, and collapsed to the ground, letting out one final, bone-shaking howl, then went utterly still.  The burning hiss from the manacles went quiet soon after.

“Is he dead?”  Mrs. Swindoll gasped, rushing to the beast the moment Richard let go of her.

As if to answer the question, the wolf let out a sound like a rasping cough, then began to shrink, grey fur and black claws slowly receding, snout and tail shrinking back, ears rounding out and shifting down the sides of its head.

Mrs. Swindoll took a breath.  “M-Mark?  Mark, can you hear me?” 

“R-Rhonda?”  The steadily-less-bestial man rasped, the fur on his head turning black, and his eyes shifting from a piercing bright yellow to a gentle green.

“Oh Mark!”  She clutched his head to her chest, tears streaming down her smiling face.

“Come on, Jodi,” Richard said, motioning toward the stairs.  “Let’s give them some privacy.”

“But I wanted to meet Louis!”

“You can meet him after he’s had a chance to put some less-shredded pants on,” he replied, grabbing her arm and gently pulling her up the stairs.

A few minutes later, the door to the basement opened, and Rhonda and Mark Swindoll stepped out, the latter now wearing an old red t-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. 

Richard smiled, taking in the relief clearly visible on their faces.  Moments like these made this ‘second job’ of his all worth it.

“Thank you,” Mark said, still breathing heavily.  “Thank you so, so much, Mr. Turner.  I thought I’d never be free of that curse!”  He hugged Rhonda.  “I can finally stop rushing to the basement when night falls, or worrying what would happen to Rhonda if I got loose.  I just…  Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Richard said.

“Hi Louis!”  Jodi waved to the man excitedly, who just squinted in confusion.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Rhonda said, wrapping her arms tightly around Mark.  “After the first night he’d changed, we tried the same spell to undo the curse, but it didn’t work.  I know in the book, the one speaking half of the spell needed to love the werewolf with all of their heart, but Mark is my husband!”

“Oh…”  Jodi whispered.

“Do I really not love him enough to cure the curse?  While some girl he’s never even met does?”

Richard patted her on the shoulder.  “No, no, it’s not your fault.  No amount of love for your husband would have cured the werewolf curse.”

“Then how did it work this time?”

“Like I said, in a way, your husband was dealing with two curses.  When the Xanadu curse turned all those cosplayers into their costumes last year, it turned your husband into a copy of Louis Garrison, from a point in the book when the character had been afflicted with a werewolf curse.  The trouble was, you tried to use your love for your husband to break a curse on Louis Garrison!   What we needed, was someone who loved Louis Garrison enough to break the curse; and after a look through some Moonlight fan sites, I found just the person.”

He gestured toward Jodi.

“Uh, glad I could help,” she said.

“I guess that makes sense,” Mark said quietly.

“It’s also why your husband still looks like Louis Garrison,” Richard continued.  “I know the press hyped me up as ‘the man who cured the Xanadu curse,’ and talk about how I pulled off more successful cures than the government’s Project X.”  He shook his head.  “But honestly, the Xanadu curse itself is the one thing I haven’t been able to work out a cure for.”

That the government had a far stricter, and, in Richard’s opinion, more accurate, definition of ‘cure’ than the press did, certainly didn’t help Richard avoid an exaggerated reputation.

Mark shook his head and laughed.  “Buddy, after spending every full moon terrified I’d wake up with literal blood on my hands, I can deal with being a little scruffier than usual.  That’s more than cure enough for me!”

He slapped Richard firmly on the back, who let out a startled “oof!”

“R-right,” Richard nodded.  “I’m glad you’re satisfied!  Some people seem to think I’m a miracle worker, and get angry I can’t do more for them.”

He definitely could’ve used a miracle or two, himself.

He fished around in his pockets, and pulled out a small slip of paper.  “Anyway, I think at least one of these places will give you a good price on the silver, which should help ease things a little, financially.”  He turned to Jodi.  “How about you?  Ready to go?”

Jodi nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll leave you two be,” Richard said, turning to the front door.  “Take it easy, and stay safe.”

He and Jodi went down the driveway to his car.

“Something wrong?” Richard asked.  “You look disappointed.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jodi mumbled, opening the car door.  “It’s just…  You wouldn’t happen to know any single Louis cosplayers that need their curse undone, do you?”

Richard chuckled, and started up the car.

Chapter Text

After a stop to drop Jodi off with her parents, Richard returned to his own home, a small single-story house, right at the edge of his neighborhood, the back yard meeting the adjacent forest.

He sighed as he closed the front door behind him.  He walked straight through the living room, which he’d recently tidied up and added more chairs to, to make it a little more pleasant for the many guests he’d been receiving over the past month, hiding away his old comics and other knick-knacks to better create a professional appearance.

There was no sign that his friend Greg, another Xanadu victim who had been staying with him since the incident, had gotten back from work yet.  But he was supposed to be working late that night anyway.

With how stressful that house call had been, Richard felt sorely tempted to shamble straight to his room and tumble into bed.  But he’d made an appointment with another pair of curse victims, who’d been waiting for weeks to see him, and his lack of foresight into how drained his previous appointment would leave him wasn’t their fault, so he entered his office.

He flicked on the light, revealing the stacks of books lining every wall of the room.  There was fiction and non-fiction of all sorts, dozens of personal notebooks filled with memos potential remedies he’d considered, and of course, the pile of records from his day job as an accountant for Sidney Studios that he still needed to sort out.  Far messier than he’d like, but when dealing with problems as diverse as those caused by the Xanadu curse, he needed every resource he could get.

Not that any of it had gotten him any closer to the one cure he sought most.

He started up his computer, turning his camera away from the mess as much as possible.  While he waited for the patients to come online, he checked up on the website he’d made, an old-school-style forum, called the Xanadu Think Tank. 

He still had a hard time believing it had only been ten months since that fateful day, when the supernatural had been introduced (or, some claimed, re-introduced,) into the modern world.  Richard hadn’t been present at the convention, though some of his friends had, and out of concern for them, he had followed the event closely as it unfolded.

It had all started at Kubla Con, a small fantasy and sci-fi convention, whose attendance had skyrocketed after a sponsorship by the eccentric millionaire Eric Winters had increased the prize for that year’s costume contest to thousands of dollars for dozens of judging categories, with the best overall receiving a stunning half a million dollars.  Cosplayers of all sorts, from hobbyists, to Hollywood professionals, had turned out in droves for a shot at the prize.  Most stuck with the fantasy or sci-fi theme, dressing as aliens, elves, knights, wizards, starship captains, superheroes, and creatures of myth and legend.  But hundreds more had attended as their own original characters, cartoon animals, characters from more grounded stories, or even various gag outfits.  Those that hadn’t come in costume were offered free masks or face painting, so that “everyone could get in the cosplaying spirit,” (a fact that had fueled dozens of conspiracy theories about how “unintentional” the incident was).  But when the time came for Mr. Winters to announce the winners, they all received much more than they bargained for.

All at once, everything changed; every person became the creature or character they had been dressed as, with all the powers and limitations that entailed.  Some even gained the memories or personality traits of their characters.  In the most severe cases, people forgot their original identities entirely, leaving only the character they’d become behind.

It was chaos.  Thousands of confused, panicking people couldn’t have been anything else, even on a “normal” day.  Throw in monsters, aliens, and supernatural powers, and it was a miracle Orlando survived, much less the convention center.  The police, and later the military, made an effort to contain the situation, quarantining the building until the government could determine what was going on and what to do about it, (though, between their slow response, and the incredible powers on display, said “quarantine” amounted to little more than a polite suggestion for many guests).

When the dust had settled, Eric Winters, himself turned into common raven, took public responsibility for the incident, claiming to have brought an antique Native American raven mask to the convention and unknowingly invoked the ancient trickster it had represented by wearing it to the costume contest’s awards ceremony.  While the scientific community had argued that Winters may have been mistaking correlation for causation, the public’s imagination had been captured, and the incident at Kubla Con had become known as “The Curse of Xanadu.”

Richard created the think tank within a month of the Xanadu Incident, after it became clear that, while curing the curse wouldn’t be as easy as having someone turned into a wizard wave a wand and turn its victim human again, helping those most affected by it live some semblance of a normal life wasn’t impossible.  He needed creative answers to difficult problems, and figured that letting anyone that wanted to help join the discussion was the best way to go about finding the less obvious solutions.

Naturally, between so many victims having no apparent avenue of cure in sight, some forum members claiming to be victims of the curse for attention, and the tendency of certain fantasy fans to talk about their how favorite characters could definitely cure everyone, no problem, (they couldn’t,) and said favorites were obviously popular enough that multiple people would have been cosplaying them during the Xanadu (they weren’t), many discussions went nowhere.  But there had been hundreds of small success stories, as well; Engineers with free time designing objects to aid some victims in their everyday lives, finding resources to help victims who could no longer hold stable jobs keep a roof over their heads, and simply providing people with a sense of community.

And then there were the bigger success stories, like the one he’d just got back from.  If the characters the cosplayers had been dressed as had undergone a reversable transformation in their original stories, it was ‘simply’ a matter of finding a way to re-create the conditions that would give the victim a human (or “human-enough,”) form.  Whether that be princesses kissing frog princes, (one of the first recorded successes,) undoing vampire or werewolf curses, or helping a monster from one of the dozens of monster-collecting games evolve into a more human-like form, there were a surprising number of victims who could be given back a bit of normalcy as long as the ‘rules’ of their story were followed.

Of course, dramatic ‘cures’ like this were few and far between.  Only a fraction of Xanadu victims had been cosplaying characters like this, and most of that group, naturally, knew their character’s story well enough to pursue a ‘cure’ on their own.  Most of the low hanging fruit had been picked before he’d even made the site, leaving only the trickiest cases.  Of the nearly one-thousand self-reported curse victims to visit the Think Tank site, only eight had been returned to a human form this way, not counting today’s werewolf, and Richard had only been directly involved with four of them.

Of course, these were the stories that had caught the attention of the press, and forcefully propelled Richard into the spotlight as the public face of “the search for the cure.”  Despite his best efforts to emphasize, again and again, that these cases were exceptions to the rule, it had still resulted in hundreds of calls, and dozens of strangers regularly showing up at his house.  Day after day, they begged him for help, for a miracle he couldn’t give them.  A month after that painful public interview, he eventually caved, setting up an office in his home, and taking appointments to meet victims, in effort to get some control over the situation.

He almost immediately regretted that.

It had already hurt, knowing it was futile.  Delivering people the harsh truth that he couldn’t cure them, over and over again.  That at best, he could only direct them to others that could provide assistance, or occasionally recommend meeting another victim with curse that paired well with theirs.  And It hurt even more when he had a thirty-minute appointment to listen to them tell their stories, often through tears, only to have to tell them there was no miracle cure. 

But he couldn’t blame them for it.  He’d started the Think Tank because he’d been looking for a miracle, himself.

Speaking of miracle cures, it seemed longtime user ForcingShine had once again bumped his thread on his own idea for that Holy Grail, the “universal cure,” a way to get any victim back to normal, regardless of their story’s “rules.” 

The oldest post, from months back, read:

I’m telling you guys, ‘anti-magic’ is the way.  Those mermaids that got kidnapped, and one of their husbands, the jedi that went to rescue them, all talked about an anti-magic spell that brought them back to normal.

The post linked to an article about the “Mermaids of Xanadu.”

And sure, it was temporary, but so was that anti-magic spell in its source material.   There’ve gotta be plenty of sources of permanent anti-magic across fiction; odds are SOMEONE was cosplaying one of them.

There had been a few posts debating how effective it would actually be.  How strong an anti-magic user’s power would have to be to not only undo the curse, but do it permanently, whether the mermaids were right, or had simply been the victims of potent illusion magic instead, or where the anti-magic user they had met had gone.  But nothing suggested anyone on the forums were, or knew, anyone with anti-magical abilities.

About a month after the first, ForcingShine had added another post, linking to another news story.

Guys, it’s a cure!  It’s a genuine, no asterisks, permanent cure!  If you don’t want to read the whole article, the tl;dr is, we’ve got a guy, Peter Duval, who was (note the past tense,) cosplaying some cat girl named Sanada, who’d been going around with some alien tech to turn people into more cat girls that were brainwashed to serve him.  (Or her, at the time?)  Anyway, when he tried to change this one girl, she threw a book at him, and bolted, and it turned him and his whole cat girl posse back to normal (and the ex-cat-girls were P***ed)!  Project X checked it out, and after they stopped his victims from trying to rip him limb from limb, they compared him with old photos on record, did a DNA test, and confirmed it was him!

One of the ex-cat-girls said they’d recognized the girl who changed them back.  Said she looked like Charlotte Aulin from Castlevania!  She heard Charlotte shout “Sanctuary,” before throwing the book, the name of a rare, super-high-level “status effect cure” spell, capable of removing any unnatural effect on a person, including the otherwise incurable (in that setting) Vampirism! 

I know other Panacea spells from the usual white mage types haven’t cured the curse, but it looks like if you’ve got a strong enough magic of the right type, you can actually overpower the curse.  Keep your eyes out for this girl!  Maybe she can help!

There was some skepticism in the replies.  If she had this power before, why hadn’t she used it earlier, on far more dangerous threats than a cat girl with a cat-girl-ifying gun? What if the guy had also been the victim of the cat girl gun, and the spell had just undone the gun’s effect, rather than the Xanadu curse?  One even questioned if Duval had even been transformed at all, and had simply told someone else to claim to be him, and been lying low after Xanadu until now.  (The last question was met with a dozen questions about why he’d come out of hiding specifically to take the fall for the crime of a Xanadu victim that had been pretending to be him for months.  No response was offered.) 

Unfortunately, once again, there were no replies indicating anyone knew the girl, or anyone with a similarly strong spell.

His post today had a similar theme.

So I finally got around to playing DreamScale, the indie game my friend had been cosplaying the main character of when Xanadu happened. 

The heroes were looking for these “Shards of the Creator,” super powerful holy items said to be part’s of that world’s creator god left as gifts to his creation.  They could each do different things, like healing or revealing illusions,  but those aren’t the important parts.  You see, they also had counterparts “Shards of the Destroyer” that had various destructive abilities, which the bad guys were trying to get. 

But here’s the good part: when the two different shards accidentally touched in the second to last chapter, it created what was basically an anti-magic bomb that covered a city block.  Everyone caught in the blast lost all their magic (until they found another shard that could restore it,) and, most important of all; it broke a seemingly permanent curse on one of the villains!  Aramus, a guy who’d been turned into a living suit of armor went back to normal, with no issues. 

My friend has one of the Shards of the Creator, the Dreamsword!  So I thought, if we could get one of the Shards of the Destroyer, we could make a universal cure for the curse!  Unfortunately, the game was pretty obscure, so I don’t know anyone else who cosplayed any Destroyer Shard holders.  I even checked that leaked list of Kubla Con’s costume contest entrants, and couldn’t find anything.  Anyone know any DreamScale cosplayers?

There hadn’t been any responses yet, and frankly Richard didn’t expect any.  He’d seen the leaked list too, and worked with several victims who weren’t on it.  He hadn’t even heard of DreamScale before today, much less anyone that cosplayed it.

Though that plot point, light and dark themed magic objects put together to permanently nullify magic, reminded him of an old, obscure fantasy novel he’d been researching while looking for another cure; Kingdom of Emptiness.  It too, featured a plot point where a meeting of powerful light and dark artifacts created a potent magic-nullifying effect, that one involving Piece of the Light, and a Piece of the Void.

He’d met a fan of the book, Victor Owens, who’d cosplayed and been turned into one of its big players, the Lord of Void.  It had been an unsettling encounter, particularly since Victor had been one of the victims of the curse whose mind had been affected as well as his body, seeming to genuinely believe on some level that he truly was the Lord of Void.  Nonetheless, Victor had proven willing to help before, offering a piece of himself to absorb and trap a curse that could transfer from person to person. 

While it was difficult to predict how different magic systems might interact, the Lord of Void’s power might have been similar enough to work for what ForcingShine was suggesting.  It wasn’t out of the question…

He started to type a response, then stopped.  No, the last two apparent cures were either painfully temporary, or mired in rumor, he couldn’t justify getting people’s hopes up on a longshot like this. 

Chapter Text

There was a ping from his messenger app, announcing a video call.  Recognizing the name of was today’s second client, he dropped what he was doing and accepted the call.  The video screen displayed the faces of two teenagers, a green-haired boy, and a brown-haired girl, both of whom wore baseball caps, black and white, respectively.  They appeared to be sitting in a forest, and a pair of tents were visible by lantern light behind them.

Richard cocked an eyebrow.  “Hello?”  He said.  “I’m Richard turner.  I had an appointment with a Melanie Song and Lucy Baker.”  He paused. “Though their email made it sound like neither of them were still human.”

In response, two creatures floated into the background of the video. 

The first was a bird-like creature, taller than Richard, its rounded body covered in pale blue feathers, with yellow feathers on its underside.  Its ‘wings’ resembled long, pink sashes, sparkling, and translucent, which formed crescent shapes, each one starting near the rear of the creature’s body then looping back to connect with it again at the front, while a third sash-like loop arched into the air above it.  Its head bore two large, yellow, crescent shaped plumes of feathers that ran down either side of its beaked face.  It had no legs, instead seeming to constantly hover in the air without any need to move at al.

The second creature resembled a human dressed in a tattered cloak, colored a shade of black so dark it almost looked like a hole in the world.  A ring of spiked red growths circled around its shoulders and upper chest like a necklace, and its head lacked any features, save for a single blue eye on the left side of its face, the right half covered in the same long white “hair” that billowed like smoke near the top of its head, its ends seeming to trail off into mist.  Its arms ended in three-fingered claws, and no legs were visible beneath the bottom of its floating cloak.

“Yeah, we’re their friends,” the girl said.  “We met back during the Xanadu incident.”

“Both of them can communicate telepathically,” the boy explained, his speech sounding rushed.  “But it doesn’t work over long distances, and phones don’t pick it up.  So we’re here to translate.”  He pointed back to the dark-cloaked creature.  “This is Melanie.  She was turned into Darkrai, the legendary Pokemon of nightmares and the new moon.”

The girl pointed to the unusual pink bird.  “And this is Lucy.  She got turned into Cresselia, the legendary Pokemon of pleasant dreams, and the crescent moon.”

Richard had never really gotten into the Pokemon series, despite its wild popularity while he was growing up.  But even before he’d started researching potential cures for these two, he’d known the basic premise; a world where kids could capture and train animals and monsters with unusual abilities.  The “legendary Pokemon,” were supposed to be the strongest ones, and, depending on the species and the adaptation one was watching, could range from being “merely” extremely rare, intelligent and powerful, to being outright gods.

“As for us translators, you can call me…” The boy paused.  “Hm.  Well, for privacy’s sake, you can call me N.”

The girl let out an amused snort, which she tried to muffle by turning away from the camera.  “Hah!  Really, ‘N?’  What a natural alias.”

It must have been an inside joke, Richard figured.  He didn’t see what was so funny about the alias.

The girl straightened up.  “Well, in that case, you can call me ‘Hilda.’  I’ll be translating for Lucy.”

“And I’ll translate for Melanie,” N said.

“Okay,” Richard said.  “Well, before we start, I’d better read the disclaimer.”  He took a deep breath, and pulled up a sheet of paper off his desk.  Few truly listened to this spiel, unfortunately, but it helped to cover his bases.

“You probably read a message like this when you made your appointment, but for legal purposes, I need to say this again: I am not a doctor, nor a psychologist.  Nothing said in this session should be considered medical advice.  I make no claims to diagnose, proscribe, treat, or cure, in whole or in part, any disease, injury, or other malady.  I am an amateur consultant on cases of Xanadu Syndrome, but make no claims to treat or cure it.  Should you require medical attention, you should seek a licensed physician immediately.”

He set the paper back down.

“With that out of the way, please, tell me about your situation.  I did a little research on the creatures you based your costumes on after getting your first email, but I’d like to hear about the issues they’re causing you.”

Melanie’s eye glowed, and after a moment, N nodded, and spoke for her.  “I’ve been miserable since the day of the Xanadu incident.  The details of Darkrai’s powers change a bit from story to story, but the version I was cosplaying had no control over its nightmare inducing abilities.  If I come within thirty feet of anyone while they’re asleep, human or otherwise, they begin to suffer from horrible nightmares.  Nightmares that cause real-world pain, and are incredibly difficult to wake someone from.”

Melanie’s head drooped.

N continued relaying her message.  “I’ve basically exiled myself from society.  I’m terrified I’ll hurt someone.”

Lucy’s shimmering wings glowed, and Hilda translated.  “Project X could probably build her a cell that would keep people out of her range of any people.  But she’d just be a prisoner for life, if a comfy one.  Assuming the government didn’t try to find a ‘good use,’ for her power.”

Lucy made a cooing sound.

“The only guaranteed cure for Darkrai’s nightmares comes from Cresselia’s power.  I can cancel out the effect of Darkrai’s aura of nightmares, and wake anyone who got caught in them up with Cresselia’s protective and healing powers.  We were already friends before Xanadu, but I’ve been sticking by Melanie’s side since this started.  It helps ease Melanie’s worries about accidentally locking someone into nightmares.  We’ve learned to rely on each other a lot over the last few months.”

Melanie’s eye glowed, and N spoke again.

“Still, neither of us wants to live like this; cut off from the rest of the world, from family, from shelter.  We get occasional visits from friends, like Hilda and N, but otherwise, we’re all alone.”

Lucy made a pained chirp.

“Not to mention the bug bites have been the worst since Xanadu!”  Hilda translated, prompting N to laugh softly.

Richard raised an eyebrow.  “Why would they be worse now?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” N said, speaking with a quickness that suggested it was all second nature to him.  “All Pokemon have an element or two they’re associated with, which makes them take more or less damage from attacks by the other elements.  They have the usual stuff you’d expect, like fire, water, and electricity, but sometimes you get some real weird picks.  Bugs are their own element, and they do double damage to both dark and psychic element Pokemon, which Darkrai and Cresselia are, respectively.  I guess that weakness translates to ‘attacks’ by real world bugs, too.”

“It’s kind of strange, now that I think about it,” Hilda added.  “Psychics are actually weak to dark attacks, and can’t hurt dark Pokemon at all with their usual moves.  So, even though the lore makes Cresselia out to be a counter to Darkrai, if they ever actually fought, Darkrai would come out on top, no contest.”

“Probably so the main characters of the story would be forced to help,” Richard suggested.  “But we’re getting side tracked.  What would you like me to do for you?”

Melanie’s eye glowed, and N translated again.  “Isn’t it obvious?  We both want to go back to normal!  To be human again!”

Richard sighed.  Here came the hardest part. He’d done enough research on these two in advance to know the answer he’d give to that request.    “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Why not?”  Hilda asked.

“The Xanadu curse means I have to play within the rules of the story the victim’s costume was based off of.  I did some reading into Pokemon for your case, and a few others, and while there were some stories of human characters getting turned into Pokemon, they were pretty rare.  When the characters did get changed back, it was usually because the change wore off on its own, or going back to normal was a reward for completing a dangerous quest.  Not only that, the people-turned-Pokemon in those stories never became legendary Pokemon; in fact, in several cases, it was a legendary Pokemon who was responsible for changing the human in the first place.  So unless you two were cosplaying your own, personalized versions of Cresselia and Darkrai that were formerly human in their backstories, there’s nothing I can do to make you human again.”

The two Pokemon exchanged worried glances, then shook their heads.

Lucy’s wings glowed, and Hilda translated again.  “Are you sure?  We waited so long to see you!  What about all the others you helped?”

“We worked with the rules we were given,” Richard said, plainly, trying to mask how much they stung to say.  “Not every case is as easy as figuring out what qualifies as a ‘princess’ for the purpose of breaking a Frog Prince’s curse.  That said, I can try to help mitigate the effects of the nightmares.  Honestly, it seems like if you two just stayed together, you should be able to live safely, without harming anyone.”

Lucy shook her head.

“We’d have to be joined at the hip wherever we went, or Mel would risk giving nightmares to someone,” Hilda translated.  “I love Mel, she’s my best friend, but both of us need some privacy from time to time.  Out here in the woods, at least, we know we aren’t hurting any people.”

“Though,” N translated for Melanie, “I still have nightmares of my own about waking up and finding a mother bird and her whole nest of chicks, dead on the ground beside me.  Shaken out of their tree, after lashing out at each other trying to defend themselves from whatever they saw in their nightmares.”

Richard winced, trying to focus on anything but that image.

“Not to mention,” Hilda continued for Lucy, “even if nightmares weren’t a risk, nobody would hire us like this, so we wouldn’t have money to get a place of our own.  And for everyone’s safety, we would need a house, with a lawn to keep some distance from where anyone else might sleep.”  Lucy made a cooing sigh.  “My family lives in an apartment, and Mel’s family didn’t respect her much, even before Xanadu.  After it, well…”

“I see,” Richard nodded.  THAT came up more often than he’d like, too.  “Well, I had talked to a few friends on my forums who were into Pokemon, and asked them about any ways to impede their abilities.  They told me there were several ways to temporarily nullify or replace a Pokemon’s attacks or passive abilities.  Well, in the video games, at least.  I’ll warn you, the Xanadu curse doesn’t always follow video game logic, even when the victim was dressed as characters from them.  But it has in a few cases, so it may be worth a try.”

Richard wasn’t completely sure what caused the inconsistency, but he suspected it was because few video game plots treated their “game logic” as part of the story.  A minor no-name mage could cast an “Instant Death Curse” on the hero’s love interest a dozen times in a single fight, she could be burned with hellfire, struck by lightning, or attacked by a whole cavalry of swordsmen, but as long as the heroes had enough healing spells and phoenix feathers on hand, she’d get up each time, no worse for the wear.  But if the main villain stabbed her in the back once to end the plot’s second act on a shocking swerve?  Nothing could save her.

“The first suggestion was to keep a Darkrai in a Poke Ball.  Its passive nightmare-inducing effects can’t penetrate them, though they said someone already given a nightmare before might keep having them.”

Melanie shook her head.

“That would just be another cell,” N translated.  “A more comfortable cell than what Project X would make, but still a cell.  Even if it’s a poke-ball from a continuity where they’re a small simulated world, rather than suspended animation, I’d still have to live alone in it if I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Alright,” Richard said, flipping through his notebook.  “The next suggestions they made required specific techniques that a handful of Pokemon species could learn.  Assuming we could find someone turned into one of those species, they could temporarily halt a Pokemon’s passive abilities, which I’m told include Darkrai’s nightmare-inducing power.  The first was an attack called Gastro Acid…”

Lucy and Melanie quickly exchanged glances and fiercely shook their heads.

“…I don’t think I need to translate that,” N said.

“Fair enough,” Richard said.  “Just try to keep in mind, if that’s all we can find, beggars can’t be choosers.  The next technique they mentioned was called Worry Seed, used by some of the ‘grass types.’  They warned me it could also cause insomnia.”

Hilda rubbed her chin.  “I might know another Xanadu victim out there who could learn that move, though I’d need to double check.”

Melanie’s eye glowed.

“She said she’s been sleeping poorly enough already,” N translated, “but she’ll take it if there are no other options.”

“There was one more thing they mentioned,” Richard said.  “Something called Entrainment.  It apparently does a dance that forces the target to copy the user’s passive ability in place of its own.”

“Oh!”  Hilda gasped, pulling a red and white ball out of her pocket, which quickly grew to fill her hand.  “I think my Durant learned that recently!” 

She pressed a button on the ball, and it opened, releasing a beam of red light that solidified into a foot-long, red-eyed ant, whose whole body seemed to be made of dull metal.  It turned toward Hilda, expectantly.

“Wait,” N said, “Once we use it, one of us will need to go to sleep to see if the nightmare aura is still active, won’t we?  And if it doesn’t work…”

Lucy’s wings glowed.

“She can stop the nightmares,” Hilda translated.  “I can volunteer for it,” she continued, speaking for herself, “if you’re worried.”

N bit his lip for a moment.

The metal ant clicked its mandibles together a few times.

N blinked.  “Are you volunteering?”

The ant bobbed its head.

“Well,” Hilda said, “Durant is a bit more durable than us.  I’d hate to put him in danger, but if he’s willing, we’ll let him do it.”

“Glad to hear we’ve got a potential solution already,” Richard said.  He had his doubts about how long it would last, or if it would work at all, but it was a pleasant surprise to see some hope on a client’s face.

Still, much as he hated to admit it, he’d had an ulterior motive for bumping their case up in the cue, and he wanted to make sure he’d settled it.

“Before you do that,” he said, “there’s a couple more questions I’d like to ask you.”

“Okay,” Hilda said, looking back to the camera.  “What’s up?”

“Cressellia and Darkrai,” Richard started, “in a few of the summaries of side-stories I’d read, it mentioned that they could enter and alter a person’s dreams, right?”

“There were a couple of stories like that,” N said.

Melanie and Lucy both glowed subtly.

“We’ve been able to enter people’s dreams since our change,” Hilda translated.  “But we’re can’t completely control them.  Mel can add more things they’re afraid of, and I can change their dreams to be more pleasant.  There might be more we could do, but Mel especially didn’t feel like experimenting.”

“Understandable.”  Richard nodded.  “I don’t suppose either of you are capable of pulling something out of a dream, and into the real world, are you?”

Both legendary Pokemon shook their heads.

Richard shrugged.  “I figured.  That’s all.  If you want to experiment while I’m on the line, go ahead.  I’m just as curious as you to see if this works.”

The two teens on the other end adjusted their camera to allow for a wider shot.  Lucy moved out of sight, while the Durant approached Melanie. 

“Alright!”  Hilda said.  “Durant, use Entrainment!”

The ant did a strange, wiggling “dance” across the ground in front of Melanie.  She stared at it in confusion for a moment, before suddenly mimicking the rhythm of the dance, looking even more confused as she did so.  Eventually, both stopped, and Melanie shook her head.

“Anything feel different, Melanie?”  N asked.

Melanie shrugged.

“I guess we’ll just give it a try and see,” N said.  “Lucy, back away so we’re sure you’re not canceling out the effect…  There.  Now, Melanie, use your Dark Void to put her Durant to sleep.”

Melanie nodded, and hesitantly put her hands together, then spread them out, a dark sphere forming between them.  She cast it forward, where it enveloped the Durant completely.  When the dark sphere faded away, the Durant lay still on the ground, its eyes closed.  Hilda ran up to it, kneeling over it.

"...He’s still breathing,” she said.  “It sounds calm. Nothing weird so far.”

They sat quietly for several minutes, before Melanie moved closer, setting her hand on the Durant’s head.  Her eye glowed for a moment, and she seemed to enter a trance.  After another moment of silence, save for the chirping of the insects, Melanie moved again, a look of joy in her eye.

“It worked?”  N asked.  “It worked!  Excellent!”

The Durant’s eyes gradually opened, and it shook itself awake.  Melanie flew to the camera, gleefully waving at it.  The two humans excitedly hugged her, and Lucy appeared from behind to nuzzle all of them.

Richard smiled.  “Great to hear!  I’m happy for you.”  He waved a hand, motioning for them to calm down.  “Keep in mind, this is a temporary measure.  And, importantly, we don’t know how temporary it is, yet.  Some suggested it might only give you minutes, rather than hours.  I recommend experimenting, seeing how long it lasts, if distance, sleep, or exhaustion make any differences in its effect, and so on, before attempting to use this to return to civilization.  But we do have an option, at least.”

The friends seemed too wrapped up in their group hug to pay attention.  Richard smiled and shook his head.  He couldn’t really blame them, could he?  If he’d found even an fraction of the success they had in the case that had driven him to start the Xanadu Think Tank, he’d be celebrating, too.

Chapter Text

The First Night After the Xanadu Incident:

Richard lay awake in his room, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to process everything he’d heard about that day.

“One moment, Andy was there, and the next, he was gone.”  That was what Greg had told Richard.

Not “gone” as in dead, or “gone” as in the transformation had affected him so deeply that he forgot who he really was, both ways many other guests at Kubla Con had “gone.” 

No, when Greg said Andy had been there one moment and gone the next, he meant that he had been casually talking to his friend one moment, and the next, he was talking to empty air.  Andy hadn’t faded away, there hadn’t been a puff of smoke, a flash of light, the blur of super speed, the appearance of a portal, or anything that could have plausibly explained it; Greg hadn’t even blinked.

The worst part was, Richard had a good guess as to what that might mean.

If the details hadn’t been impossible to fake over a simple phone camera, he never would have believed it.  Thousands of people changed into their costumes?  Real magic and superheroes?  Aliens with functional super tech?  If it hadn’t been impossible to fake on the simple phone camera Greg had brought with him (and asked someone else to hold, as his fingers could no longer grip it properly,) Richard wouldn’t have believed it.

And to make it all the more worrying, his best friend, Andy Douglas, was apparently missing.  No matter where or how long others had looked, they couldn’t find a trace of him.

Richard wished he could remember more details about Andy’s character.  It had been something of Andy’s own creation, the villain of a comic project that had never completely gotten off the ground.  A kind of creepy jester marionette that could haunt the dreams of people that knew it by its name: Shadow Puppet.  Once someone knew its name and face, only sleeping near a sleeping near a special warding symbol would keep him out.

 He was supposed to have complete control over dreams, and a goal of merging the dream world and the real world to create an inescapable nightmare that was forever under his control.

If that was what Andy had become, it might explain the disappearance.  But what could anyone do about it?

“Richard?”

Richard shot up, instantly recognizing Andy’s voice.  He turned his head to the source, only to see a human sized marionette hanging limply from the strings of a floating crossbar.  It was dressed in a jester’s outfit, a black and purple ensemble, with tassels and bells dangling from the waist, wrists, ankles, and hat.  Its face was made of three whisps of purple flame, in the shape of eyes and a mouth, hovering in front of a featureless head made of black cloth.

Richard gasped and inched back in his bed instinctively. 

“Wait!”  The marionette’s flame eyes widened, and it reached a hand out, the rest of its arm, and its head, swinging lifelessly.  “it’s me!”

“Andy?”  He asked, hesitantly moving closer.

The puppet’s head nodded.  “Y-yes, it’s me, Andy!  Sorry to scare you like that.  Let me see if I can get these shapeshifting abilities working…”

Shadows enveloped the puppet, and when they parted, a young man, short, brown-haired, green-eyed, and dressed in casual jeans and T-shirt, stood in its place.

“There we go,” Andy said, giving a quick look over himself.  “Again, sorry.  It’s been a long day for me, too.  I’d been trying to talk to you, or anyone, since this mess happened, but until you fell asleep, no one could hear me.”

“Asleep?”  Richard repeated.  “This is a dream?”

Richard blinked, and suddenly, the two of them were standing in a moonlit, grassy field, the blades of grass slowly rising and falling in ripples under a gentle wind. 

Andy nodded, but after that change of scenery, Richard didn’t need any further confirmation.  “Yeah, when everybody else got turned into their costumes, so did I.  I guess everything about my character applies to me, now, including the part about only being able to show up in the dreams of people that knew Shadow Puppet’s name and appearance.”  He sighed.  “Which, given I never got the comic past the concept art stage, means it’s just you, me, Greg, one or two people that asked about my costume at the convention, and maybe five followers on my BuzzyArt page.” 

Richard nodded.  “Of course!  That’s why nobody could find you!  We’d been so worried!”

“Exactly!”  Andy said.  “Still, it’s not all bad!  In fact, I can do all the dream manipulating stuff he could, too!  Watch!”

He snapped his fingers, and Richard suddenly felt himself clad in literally shining armor, a sword in on hand, and a shield on the opposite arm.

“Woah!”

“And that’s not all,” Andy said, smiling.  He gestured toward a flower, motioning for it to grow taller, its petals splaying out.  He twirled his finger, and the petals joined together, becoming the wings of a butterfly, which lifted off into the air.  Midway through its flight, it suddenly grew hundreds of times its size, its wings shrinking away as it became a dolphin, diving into the ocean that the land below it had suddenly become.

Richard could only gaze in awe.

“Impressive huh?”  Andy asked.  “I could even use this power to change other victims of… whatever happened today, back to normal!” 

“You could?”  Richard asked.  “I know Greg would appreciate that.”

Andy frowned.  “Well, in their dreams, anyway.  Once they woke up, they’d be back to normal.”

Richard’s head drooped.  “Oh.”

“But, it might not have to stay that way,” Andy said, his eyes lighting up.  “Remember what I told you about the finale I had planned?  Where one of Shadow Puppet’s followers manage to do the ritual that merges the dream world and the waking world in the heroes’ hometown?  If you could do that, not only could I get out of here, I could get everyone else back to normal, too!”

“I want to help, but…”  Richard hesitated. “Even assuming that ritual would work, merging reality and dreams seems like it wouldn’t take much to go horribly wrong.”

“Fair point, but what other options are there?  You’d just have to do the ritual in reverse once I’d turned everyone back to normal, and then the merge would stop.”  He sighed, his head drooping.  “Please.  I don’t want to spend eternity stuck in here!  What’ll happen if everyone who even knows about Shadow Puppet dies?”

Richard frowned.  He couldn’t just leave Andy behind.  “Fine.  I promise, I’ll find a way to get you out of here.”

“Great,” Andy replied.  “In fact, I’ve got a way we can stay in touch.”

He held out his hand, and a shadow appeared within it, long, thin, and flexible, like a string, giving off a faint purple glow.

Richard grimaced. “A puppet thread?  Didn’t Shadow Puppet use those to control people while offering them power?  A kind of deal with the devil?  I know being stuck in here must be miserable, and you’re my friend, but…”

“I get it,” Andy said.  “I’d be scared to give up control, too.  If it wasn’t important, I’d be happy to just sit here in your dreams and relay instructions for the ritual whenever you go to bed.  But you, me, and everyone else needs a way to get back to normal!  Think of the people turned to robots without compatible power sources in this world, or aliens that can only eat foods native to a planet that never existed!  Think of people who went to Kubla Con dressed as undead, wanting to eat the people they once called friends!”

Images each of these creatures floated behind Andy as he spoke.  A robot’s movements slowing to a halt, before falling over motionless, a purple, octopus-like alien clutching at its stomach in pain, and a zombie lurching out for terrified humans.  Andy dismissed the images with a wave of his hand.

“We need to fix this, and we need to fix it fast!  I promise, I’ll only step in and take the reins when I see a way to set up the ritual faster.  I’d hate to see you just walk past a once-in-a-lifetime deal on a component of the ritual and only find out after you turn in that you missed it.  Otherwise, you’re in the driver’s seat!”

He held out his hand.

“Do you trust me?”

Richard stared at the hand in front of him.  Andy had a point; so many people at the con were in a truly awful state.  He didn’t like the idea, but they all needed help, and it didn’t seem like anyone turned into, say, a wizard, by whatever this was, had strong enough magic to undo this.

More than that, he’d known Andy since high school, and in the decade that followed, they’d been best friends, always there to pick each other up when one needed help, even in the most difficult situations.  If he couldn’t trust Andy, who could he trust?

Richard raised his hand.

“Wait!” 

Before he could reach out, Richard heard the cry of a familiar voice: Andy’s.

But Andy’s lips hadn’t moved.

He and Andy turned to the source of the shout and saw… Andy?

The second Andy ran through the grassy field, chains wrapped around his arms and neck, panting and gasping.

“Don’t trust him!”  He shouted.  “That’s not me!”

Richard turned to the “Andy” in front of him, slowly backing away from it.  Its eyes turned a solid purple as its face twisted into a scowl.

“…And plan A was going so well.”

The fake Andy lurched into the air several inches, as if he was being yanked by strings, the world going dark as the imposter shifted back into the jester marionette it had been before.  The stars above shifted into countless leering, purple eyes, while the grass around Richard shifted into a field of briars.  The armor and shield vanished, leaving Richard back in his usual clothes, and he nearly dropped the sword in surprise.

The menacing marionette raised a hand, the arm it was attached to following behind limply.  Its fingers clutched, and, mimicking the puppet’s motion, a cage rose up from the ground and closed around the real Andy.

Richard gripped the hilt of the sword tightly in both hands, holding it at arm’s length between him and Shadow Puppet.

“Y-You let him go right now!”  He shouted. 

The puppet let out a giggle like nails on a chalkboard.  “Oh please, a friend in the hand is worth two in the bush.”  It’s hanging head twisted upward at a slight angle, and its other hand dragged a finger over its chin in imitation of a thoughtful pose.  “Or was it a bird in need is a bird in deed?  Speaking of deeds…”  It lurched closer to Richard, though it stayed well outside the reach of his sword.  “Perhaps we could bargain for your friend’s release?”

“Forget about me!”  Andy shouted.  “Just run!  Don’t listen to a word he says!  I’ve got some concept art of a ward to keep him out of your dreams, set a paper with it by your nightstand and-”

The puppet’s hand stretched out, impossibly long, and covered Andy’s mouth.

“Wow, this one’s chatty,” Shadow Puppet remarked.  “Let’s give him some quiet time, hm?”

Shadow Puppet pulled his hand back, and thick, sound-proof glass appeared between the bars of his cage.  He crossed his arms smugly, glancing at Andy.   “What’s that matter, huh?  Never learned to lucid dream?”  He let out a laugh like nails on a chalkboard.

“Now, where were we?”  Shadow Puppet turned back to Richard, attempting to un-cross his arms, only for the strings holding them to get tied together.  “Right!  Negotiations!”

“I don’t care what your deal is, I’m not taking it!”  Richard shook his head.  He doubted Shadow Puppet would even respect the letter of his end of any deal, much less the spirit.

“How defiant! How moral!”  Shadow puppet said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.  “How…”  He finally untangled the strings holding up his arms.  “Ah!  There!”  He resumed his speech.  “How classically heroic!” 

He slowly floated closer to Richard, who kept the point of the sword trained on Shadow Puppet.

“But you’re no hero, are you?  You’re not even one of those cosplaying suckers!” 

The marionette casually pinched the flat ends of Richard’s blade, pulling it aside in a surprisingly strong grip, as the puppet closed the distance between them, getting right in Richard’s face.

“You can’t even hold a sword right!  So let’s stop playing around, okay?  Just help me get out of the dream world, and I swear, your friend’ll get to go back to the waking world too.  I can even turn your other friends caught in that magic back to normal.  Just take the puppet thread.”

“I already told you,” Richard grunted, trying to wrestle the sword out of his foe’s grip, “I’m not taking any deal!

Richard could at least take some solace in the fact that Shadow Puppet seemingly had to make a deal to control him.  With all the power he had over this dream, the nightmare creature should have easily been able to literally force Richard’s hand, otherwise.

“I’m going to save Andy!”

Shadow Puppet laughed.  “And how are you going to do that, huh?”

He let go of the sword, and all the force Richard had put into trying to pull the blade back turned against him, causing him to spin and tumble to the ground, crying out as the thorns dug into him.  He groaned, and forced himself upright, holding out his sword again.

“Even if you could fight,” Shadow Puppet continued, “You remember what kind of powers Andy gave me in that stupid story of his, right?  I’m the number one bad guy of his little unfinished mess!  I can control any dream!  It’ll take more than one guy with a sword to kill me for good.”

“Maybe,” Richard said, stepping closer.  “But I don’t need you dead, just out of the way!”

With a yell, Richard lunged at Shadow Puppet, driving his sword squarely through the marionette’s chest.

The puppet let out a pained shriek, and the soundproof glass around Andy’s cage shattered.

Then Richard heard Andy’s pained screams, too.  Glancing back to the cage, he saw Andy grasping at a glowing purple gash in his chest, in the exact same spot he’d stabbed Shadow Puppet.

Shadow Puppet’s pained cries shifted to labored laughter, and he grabbed onto the blade.  “So that’s what pain feels like, huh?”  He gazed into Richard’s eyes.  “D-didn’t quite work, did it?  Heh heh…  That’s alr-right…  Maybe you just need to work it deeper in there!”

To Richard’s shock, Shadow puppet pulled himself further down the blade’s length, closer and closer to Richard’s face, panting and gasping in pain every inch of the way.  And even more to Richard’s shock, Andy’s shouts grew louder, and the purple gash on his chest grew larger.

“Wh-what’s happening to him?”  Richard demanded, trying to pull his sword away. 

Shadow Puppet let out a pained groan.  “Come on, t-try harder, I’m sure you c-can get me out of the way!  Maybe you just m-missed a v-vital organ!” 

He yanked the blade, twisting it and tugging it from side to side, more glowing gashes appearing in Andy’s chest as he did so.

“Wh-what are you doing to him?”  Richard stammered.

“Wrong qu-question…  It’s not what I-I’m doing to him!  It’s what y-you’re doing!”  Shadow puppet let go of the sword, and Richard tumbled back into the briars with a yelp, pulling the sword out with him.  When Richard sat up, a purple gash, identical down to the last detail to Andy’s, was clearly visible on Shadow Puppet’s torso as he floated a few strides away from Richard.

“I’m the one wearing a jester’s outfit,” Shadow Puppet continued, his whole body shaking with laughter, his limbs to flailing wildly.  “I should be the biggest fool here!  But here you are, attacking your own friend because you can’t put two and two together!  Andy was dressed like me when everyone changed, and I don’t have a physical body, that’s why we vanished into the dream world.  You’re trying get your friend out of here and leave me to rot, but Andy IS me!”

“H-how does that work?”  Richard stammered, confused. 

“You saw how many people out there had gotten really into character, didn’t you?  For plenty of people, this curse was more than skin deep; it dug into the mind, dumped some new stuff in, maybe took some old stuff about the boring losers they had been out.  And a few, like good old Andy, got their costume’s identity as a whole extra personality in their head.  And the fun part is…”

A copy of Shadow Puppet floated out from behind him.  Then a copy floated out from behind that copy, which continued until a dozen Shadow Puppets circled Richard. 

“Here in the dream world?”  All the copies said in unison, “we can make our own bodies, even if we technically share the same mind.  I don’t have to rely on Andy for anything!”

The copies all circled around Richard, before folding back into the original Shadow puppet.

“But we’re still linked,” Shadow Puppet said, pressing his hands together in attempt to get his limp fingers to interlock.  “A great bargain on a package deal!  If you want Andy back, you’re bringing me with him!  You get rid of me, you get rid of him!   And sure, he technically has the same power as me.  But I’ve got years of experience using them over him, who only kinda knows how they all work.  I’m always gonna have an edge on him; he’s not reversing this situation any time soon.  He can deny his new nature all he wants, but…”

He snapped his fingers, the caged Andy suddenly turning into an exact copy of Shadow Puppet. 

“As long as that curse is affecting him, I’ll always be a part of him!”

Andy shuddered, shutting his eyes and clenching his fists, gradually shifting his body back to normal.

“So tell me…” Shadow Puppet held out a glowing thread once more.  “Do you want to help Andy, or not?”

Richard didn’t want to believe it, but the slowly healing wounds on both Shadow Puppet and Andy didn’t lie.  What could he do?  Even if he had the means to permanently destroy Shadow Puppet, even if he could fight him, it would mean nothing if he killed Andy along with him.  There had to be some way to get everyone back to normal, wasn’t there?

Shadow Puppet made a snorting sound.  “It’s a yes or no question.  Don’t think I can’t see the wheels turning in there, with how long it takes you to answer.  You’re not gonna find a cure, I can feel it.  This magic’s too potent for anyone to undo.  And don’t even think about trying to bring any dream-walkers into this; none of the ones created in this mess’ll stand a chance against me!  You’re in this alone, you hear me?  If you bring anyone else into this, it’ll get messy!”

He floated back toward Richard, his head drooping to one side as he thrust out the puppet thread again.  “Yes or no, Richard!  That’s all I want to hear!”

Richard shook his head.  “No,” he said, weakly.

“Okay then!”  The purple flames that made up Shadow Puppet’s mouth grinned.  “Well, hope you weren’t looking forward to a good night’s sleep for a while, because I’ll be here in your dreams, making you, and especially Andy, suffer, until the answer is yes!  And you’re gonna watch.  Every.  Single.  Night.”

“Richard!”  Andy shouted.  “Don’t listen to him!  It’s reverse-”

“Will you SHUT UP?”  Shadow Puppet slapped Andy with the back of his hand, then reeled as his own head spun around, tangling his strings.

“…Probably should have thought that through…” He mumbled, as Andy tried to straighten back up.

“Just remember the ward!”  And shouted.  “Print it out, give one to everyone that needs it, and forget about me!”

Shadow Puppet growled.  “You know what?  We’re done here!”  He snapped his fingers, and Richard saw thousands of floating swords appear in the sky above him, hanging blade down.  Then they all started to fall.

Richard’s eyes shot open, and he found himself back in his bedroom, tangled up in the sheets and blankets once again.  He panted, trying to regain his bearings.

It was just a dream, that’s what he wanted to tell himself.  But no matter how many times he whispered it, he knew it wasn’t the full truth.  Just because it was a dream didn’t mean it wasn’t real.  Not in a world where wizards, aliens, monsters, and superheroes could suddenly come into existence.

He knew one thing for sure; he had to find a way to fix this.  To get Andy, Greg, and anyone else who needed it back to normal! 

There had to be some way, right?

Chapter Text

Present Day

Richard had always hated getting up early on a Saturday morning, and the morning after a night spent curing a werewolf was no exception, but over the past two months, he’d gotten grudgingly used to it.  There were only so many times he could make himself available for appointments while also working a full-time day job and trying to maintain some semblance of a life of his own.

Which made ‘clients’ like the pair that had shown up in his office this morning all the more annoying.

“You’ve got to stop this whole operation,” shouted a man in a blue and white superhero getup Richard didn’t recognize, who had called himself “Stormbreaker.”  He slammed his fist on one of the few clear spots on Richard’s desk, for emphasis.  “Right now!”

“We won’t let you get rid of any more of us,” added a young woman in a purple kimono with flower patterns, who went by “Ayumi.”  Whether they went by those names because they were “strangers,” Xanadu victims who had lost all sense of their original identity and truly become their costume, or simply opted not to give him their real names, Richard had no way of knowing.

“For the last time,” Richard said, “no, I am not trying to ‘get rid’ of any Xanadu victims.  I’m trying to help them.”

Why did people like these make appointments just to yell at him?

“That’s what every eugenicist says,” replied Stormbreaker.  “They’re just trying to ‘end the suffering’ of the ‘lesser people.’  I’m not falling for it!”

Good Lord, eugenicist?  Where did they get these ideas?

Richard took a deep breath.  He would try to handle this calmly.  Professionally.

“You are right to be concerned about people potentially mistreating victims of Xanadu Syndrome,” he replied.  “I’m simply confused as to how anything I’m doing could constitute a threat to them.  The think tank I started was created to brainstorm ways to help those most affected by the curse go back to some semblance of a normal life, through things like mobility aids, and finding ways to get those with specialized diets the food they need.  Every person we’ve assisted had specifically requested help, and-”

“Then what about the section of your site’s forum dedicated to finding a ‘universal cure?’”  Ayumi interrupted, scoffing.  “Why would you be looking for a cure for everyone if you’re just trying to help the ones that ‘need it?’  You’ve fixed up a couple people on their own.  Why not stick to that, rather than make something that could turn people who are just fine as they are back to ‘normal?’” 

Richard folded his hands.  There were some days he wished he had banned talking about the possibility on the forums (or at least stopped ForcingShine from “necromancing” his threads when they didn’t get responses).  Too much false hope, leading to too much real drama.   But he wanted people to be able to discuss all possibilities.

“It’s not that simple,” Richard said.  “There are many people who have no other hope of a cure, and even then, the odds-”

“Just admit it!”  She crossed her arms and huffed.  “You’re scared of us!  Scared, or so jealous of what happened to us, that you won’t let anyone else be better if you can’t.  Sure, a couple people have it rougher than they used to, but that’s just because selfish jerks like you would rather ‘adjust’ them to fit society than adjust society to fit their needs!”

Were these two even listening to themselves?

“Hang on a minute.”  Richard told himself to calm down, took another deep breath, and reached under his desk.  If this “Ayumi” had been honest about her abilities when she’d applied for this appointment, he had just the example for her.  “There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.”

He pulled out a small card out of his desk, and held it up toward them.  “Meet Franklin Hunt.”

“That’s a card explaining the rules for Go Fish,” Stormbreaker said, flatly, while Ayumi’s face went pale.

“Correct,” Richard nodded.  “It is also former cosplayer Franklin Hunt.”

“You’re expect me to believe that someone went to a convention dressed as a card?”

“He… He’s not lying.”  Ayumi stammered.  “I can see the souls of any creature.  Somehow, this card has one.”

“Ah, good, so you weren’t lying about seeing auras,” Richard said.  “That makes things much easier.” 

“Hang on,” Stormbreaker looked at Ayumi.  “You’re saying that’s a person?”

“Correct,” Richard nodded. 

If only “Stormbreaker” had had the decency to listen the first time.

“Why the hell would someone cosplay a card?”  Stormbreaker asked, his brows knit in confusion.

“Technically, he didn’t.”  Richard set the card down.  "He cosplayed some fop with a hard to spell name from a fantasy story.  A fantasy story where those who knew how, could create little pockets of space that could turn any ordinary room into a huge world of its own, and all objects in that room into creatures and people to inhabit that world.  When said objects-turned-people were taken out of those worlds, they went back to their original states.  Hence, when Xanadu happened, and Franklin wasn’t in one of these worlds, his character ‘returned’ to his ‘original state.’

“Franklin was only found because another cosplayer with the power to see souls, like Ayumi’s, noticed him after the chaos ended.  And the government were only able to deliver him back to his family because some over-eager employee on the first day of the convention had been presenting the costume contest sign-up sheet as if it were part of the process to get in the door.  Without that sheet there wouldn’t have even been a name to put with the lack-of-face.”

Stormbreaker and Ayumi were silent.

“His family tried to get help, and I found another person who’d cosplayed a character from that story, someone who could create one of those pocket worlds.  Unfortunately, even that had issues. If these characters are put in a pocket world they aren’t ‘native’ too, they eventually turn to stone, until they can be returned to their original world, which requires being in the location that pocket world was made.  We only got him a couple hours to see his family.  Before he turned to stone, he asked to be left with me, so he could be cured as soon as possible, if one was found.”

He put the card back in the drawer.

“So, unless you two have any ideas to get him to a pocket dimension in a school that doesn’t exist, a way to completely undo the Curse of Xanadu really is the only hope for cases like Franklin’s.  That’s why I allowed discussion of it on my site, even if I don’t think it’s likely to happen.”

After a pause, Stormbreaker spoke again.  “Alright then, fine.  Maybe people like him need it, but don’t act like nobody would be trying to get rid of us if there were a cure!  If that happened, you’d be responsible for ruining the life of every Xanadu victim who had it forced on them, and the lives of anyone their powers could’ve saved!  Not to mention the Strangers that would be completely gone.  Is curing a couple people who went to the convention in joke costumes really worth that?”

While he’d admit ‘curing’ Strangers was an ethical dilemma he had no idea how to handle, Richard liked to think that all the Xanadu victims who had been rendered helpless by their condition, would argue that being able to live again would be worth the risk that the cure could possibly be abused.  But he doubted Stormbreaker would hear it. 

“Well, again, fortunately for you, a universal cure is extremely unlikely to be found.  You have very little to fear.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Stormbreaker huffed.

“Judge all you like,” Richard said.  “Now, if you don’t have anything you need actual help with, I’d like you to leave.”

Stormbreaker glared.  “Hey, I’m not done talkin-”

“But I am.”

“A wise guy, huh?”  Stormbreaker growled.  “And how are you gonna make us leave?”

A green, scaly head at the end of a long neck stuck itself through the office’s open window, its horns scraping the edges, the noise startling the two unwanted guests.

“By asking nicely,” the dragon said in a course, raspy voice.  “You two aren’t going to make any trouble, are you?”

“N-no, sir,” Stormbreaker mumbled.  “Let’s go, Ayumi.”

When the two had seen themselves out, Richard turned to the dragon, relief in his face.  “Thanks for keeping an eye on me, Greg.”

Being friends with a dragon had its upsides.  Nothing talks down an unruly guest like a giant reptile with a face full of knife-lie teeth.

“No problem,” the Greg said, his casual speech contrasting harshly with his voice’s natural rasp.  “I don’t see what jerks like that get out of coming in here, and acting like you’re trying to force people to go back to normal.  I can understand the people looking for a cure and not getting one lashing out; there are days where I feel like if I gotta sleep in the garage like a dog one more night, I’m gonna lose it!   But why waste time driving out here to threaten you?  Why not bother the Winters-Stark Foundation, or Project X?  They’re looking for cures too, and are probably way more likely to find them.”

“Probably because they know those places can afford security, and have multiple Gokus and Supermen on speed dial.  Meanwhile, most people don’t know my friend got turned into a dragon.”  Richard leaned back in his chair.  “Glad to have that over with.”

“Tell me about it.”

Richard sighed, and changed the tab on his computer screen, displaying Andy’s old art page.

Greg frowned.  “I know you don’t like to hear me say it,” said Greg, “but we really should take that stuff down.  I don’t want to get rid of Andy’s art any more than you, but with how that creep almost tricked both of us that first night, we can’t risk anyone else getting exposed.  Someone else is bound to see his face and name eventually, someone who’ll fall for it.  For all we know, it’s already happened.”

“How would I even do that?”  Richard asked.  “Andy didn’t exactly give me his password.”

“Report the art for copyright infringement or something!  Half the internet used automated moderation nowadays, they won’t check if anything actually broke a rule or not if he doesn’t appeal.”

Richard shook his head.  “Half the reason Andy went with a smaller art site was because it used human moderators.  And even if I can think of a plausible charge, the mod will get exposed too.  His art’s obscurity is our biggest advantage.”

It stung a little to say that, remembering how frustrated Andy had been about not finding an audience.

Greg was quiet for moment, seeming to go over potential counterarguments in head.  When nothing came, he shook his head.  “Fair enough.”

Greg started to pull his head back outside, when Richard heard a ping from his computer’s messenger program.  Then another, then another. 

“What’s this?

Pulling up the messenger, Richard saw he’d gotten dozens of direct messages, many of them from members of his forum, all of them linking to one of dozens of news articles from numerous sources on a single story:

Florida woman stops supervillains, cures several Xanadu victims, including self

Richard clicked one of the links, and a video played above the article, from a civilian cell phone, footage of a mish-mash serpentine creature flying through the air, each of its limbs from a different species: a bat wing, a bird wing, a lion’s paw, a buffalo’s hoof, an eagle’s talon, and a lizard’s claw, among other things.  In its wake, clouds changed to cotton candy, concrete turned to cake, trees and shrubs twisted into the shapes of animals, lashing out and attacking passers-by, and gravity became less a law, and more a polite suggestion.

The camera cut to a different part of the city, not far from the first, where a short man in mismatched clothes and a purple bowler hat teleported this way and that, changing people into animals, and bringing statues and graffiti to life. Policemen fired round after round at the strange little man, but their bullets were turned into bubbles.  When the officers stopped firing, confused, the little man waved his hand and turned them into tiny wind-up toys.

“Altamonte Springs citizens were in panic last night, as their city became the target of two powerful transformed attackers,” read the news anchor.  “The attackers had caused chaos across the city with seemingly no goal beyond their own amusement.”

The image changed, displaying a group of superheroes, aliens, and a couple other creatures, in tactical gear.

“In response, Project X sent a squad of specially trained transformed individuals, recruited in the aftermath of the Xanadu incident, to capture or kill the attackers.”

The image changed again, displaying both the attackers converging over a rooftop where a party was being held.  Panicking people ran for the doors, only to find themselves floating into the sky as balloon animals before they could reach the door.  One young Arabic woman, too stunned to have run during the initial panic, backed away as the two reality-warpers approached her.  In the background, the Project X squad could faintly be seen attempting to fight their way through a swarm of flying pigs, and rescue the people floating away.  Then the woman raised her hand, and something on it let out a bright glow, blinding the camera.

“In a shocking twist, one of the citizens attacked by the gang, one Leigh Kathan, not only saved herself, but brought the attack to a close single handedly.”

The white light faded, and the city looked just as it was supposed to; trees moved only in the breeze, clouds were a faded blur against the night sky, buildings were solid, officers and citizens got up and dusted themselves off, checking to make sure they were completely normal again.

On the rooftop, the people turned to balloons had gently landed back on the roof, where two confused cosplayers in outlandish getups gazed around, dumbfounded.  Another set of cosplayers, these ones wearing Project X tactical gear on top of their home-made outfits, panicked as they attempted to make their powers work again.

“In a flash, Leigh had returned all the Xanadu victims within the city to normal, from the attackers, to the Project X squad, even herself.”

The video cut to an interview with Leigh.

“It was terrifying, and I was worried I might only make things worse if I tried anything with it.  But once he started to choke me, I got desperate…”

“We asked the young Florida woman how she had done it,” the anchor’s speech had continued, “and she offered this explanation:”

“The ring I was wearing was called Solomon’s Seal,” she said.  “In the novel I had based my costume on, it had been a blessing from God on Solomon, used in the backstory to permanently stop or weaken the magic of all djinni in the world, as punishment for manipulating mankind.  It could stop any force of magic short of the Creator Himself.”  She ran her fingers over a plastic ring.  “I hadn’t messed with before now, because if it was used incorrectly, it could make things so, so much worse.”

“Did you expect how far the effect would go?”  Her offscreen interviewer asked.

“I hadn’t been thinking about it at all.”

“Needless to say,” the anchor continued, as the camera shifted to two young men, “the complete elimination of the effects of Xanadu Syndrome has caught the attention of Project X.  Including two teams’ leads, Doctors Sands, and Dyson, who agreed to an interview.”

“We haven’t seen a cure this thorough, or far reaching, since the Xanadu Incident first occurred,” said the man the on-screen text introduced as Dr. Sands.  “And nothing close to this has lasted two hours, let alone ten!  There’s every possibility this may be permanent.”

“If we can understand what made this incident different,” said Dr. Dyson, his name appearing under him on screen, “we might be able to help others affected by Xanadu Syndrome.”

“Unfortunately,” the anchor added, “we can’t expect a repeat performance anytime soon.”

The video cut back to Leigh. 

“The blast affected everything,” she said.  “Including the ring.  I’ve been trying to get it to work again since the attack ended was over, but it’s just a piece of plastic, now.”

“Even the cure isn’t all good news,” the anchor continued, the video shifting back to Dyson and Quest, occasionally flashing to images of the former Project X squad in moping their restored forms.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Dyson said, “it’s great that Squad X4 can go back to a normal life.  But that’s still months of training their powers wasted, and a unique set of skills we can’t get back.  What if another hostile sufferer of Xanadu Syndrome tries to attack?  We need every superhero we can get.”

Richard looked away from the screen as the anchor droned on.

If something like this could work, perhaps ForcingShine was on to something, after all.

“Let’s see if we can get in touch with the Lord of Void.”

*

Richard stood in front of a cave entrance some distance from civilization.  He hadn’t liked making the trip out here the first time he’d come.  The old, overgrown, swampy trail was a pain to navigate, but the area lacked enough clear, stable footing that Greg could easily fly him in to skip the hike.

As Richard gazed into the cave, a white mask with horns and hollow eyes appeared in the darkness.

“It is said if one gazes long enough into the abyss,” a whispering voice said, “it gazes back.”

“Greetings to the Lord of Void,” Richard said. “You and I both know this situation isn’t what that quote was talking about.”  An attempt at humor was one of the few things he could muster, in the face of the eerie stillness.

“Indeed,” the voice said, as the mask moved closer to the light.  Or perhaps it was merely becoming larger, as it hardly seemed to move.  A faint outline of an inhumanly tall, thin, black body could be seen behind it, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping stone, as the light glinted against a huge sword in its dark hand.  “The Lord of Void knows of all that is not.  The Lord of Void knew that this would not be an afternoon it would spend alone.  And it knows that its visitor did not come merely to exchange pleasantries.” 

The Lord of Void didn’t step beyond the mouth of the cave, but Richard somehow got the sense that the creature was far larger than what he could see.  Somehow, he’d never felt inclined to enter the cave and test that.   “You’re right,” Richard said, “I’m here to ask for your help.”

“Offer nothing, and you will receive nothing,” the Lord of Void said.

“…Can I at least say what I’m hoping to receive, before offering something?”

“I did not say what I did not say.”

Richard, frankly, wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“You wish to make a void in the magic that has returned to the world,” the Lord of Void continued.  “This is true?”

“Yes.”

“Yet there is something you do not say.  A fear that even this void may not allow another void to be filled.”

Richard nodded.  “My friend, Andy.  He’s trapped in a dream world.  I hope that this will cure him, but I don’t even know if it can even reach him.”

“Indeed,” the Lord of Void said, tilting its mask contemplatively.  “There is no trace of your friend in this world.  As he is now, he would linger outside the void of magic you would create.”

Richard’s face fell.  “There has to be something I can do.  Some way to get him out of there.”

“The wicked presence controlling your friend seeks to join the waking world, and the dream world, does he not?”

“Yes,” Richard said.  “I guess that would bring him out here, but if we actually did that ritual, he’d have control over our world, and he’d probably keep us from fixing him.”  He shook his head.  “Besides, I don’t know how to do the ritual.  He’d already tried to possess me to do it, and…”  Richard blinked, as he considered the implications of what he just said.  “…Would he beyond the reach of our-anti-magic bomb if he were possessing me?”

“It would link his soul to a fixed point in the waking world.  As he told you, he an Andy are linked.  In such a case, the void of magic would only fail to reach Andy if it failed to reach you.”

“Of course!”  Richard said.  “That’s it!  It’s risky, but it’s not hopeless!  I can finally get Andy out of there!”

“That is not beyond the possible,” the Lord of Void said.  “I shall aid you.  Do you have a vessel?”

“A vessel?”  Richard said, before remembering what he’d come here for.  “Yes, yes I do.” 

He opened his backpack, and pulled out a large glass jar.  He removed the lid, and set it in front of him.

“So, what do I need to give you in return for a piece of the void?”

The Lord of Void slowly extended its arm beyond the cave, into the light, appearing as if the shadows themselves had extended.  “Again, I say, offer nothing, and you shall receive nothing.”

Its palm opened downward, and darkness bubbled underneath it, forming into a single large drop, that fell into the jar.  It splashed like liquid, before rapidly solidifying into a jagged, solid shape.  Richard sealed the jar.  He had what he was looking for.

“Ah, so that was what you meant,” Richard said.  “My apologies.  Thank you very much for your help.”

“It was nothing.”  The Lord of Void made something like a laugh, making Richard wonder just how much of Victor was still in there.

“Do you… want to go back to normal, yourself?”  Richard asked.  “You could come with us, when we made the cure, if you wanted.”

“By becoming nothing,” the Lord of Void said, “I have come to understand everything.  Your offer is appreciated, but not needed.  The man and the void are one and the same.”

The mask faded away.

“May you be void of harm.”

Chapter Text

One Month later

“Sorry were late,” a young man told Richard, getting out of his car.  “This place is kinda out of the way for us, and we got a little turned around.”

“It’s no problem,” Richard said, standing at the edge of a church parking lot, under the light of the lampposts.  “We’re still waiting for a few more people to arrive.”  He looked down as a short lizard person in a cloak climbed out the back seat, a scabbard on his back.

“I take it you’re Jay, then?”  Richard asked.  “And that’s the ‘Shard of the Creator” you talked about?  The Dreamsword?”

“Yes to both!”  Jay said, drawing the sword, which glowed brightly in the darkness.  Its blade seemed to be made from Sapphire, and its hilt a mix of silver and wood.  “Check it out!”

“It’s very impressive,” said an older man, approaching from the church, accompanied by Greg, and a human-shaped robot, its skin made of chrome that gleamed in the light of the sword and the lampposts.  “Is this the last of them, Richard?”

“No, but we couldn’t get started without them,” Richard said.  “Let me introduce you: Greg, Conner, Peter, this is Kevin, or ‘ForcingShine” from my forums, and his friend Jay, whose sword will be an ingredient in our prospective cure.  Kevin, Jay…” 

He gestured to the dragon.   “These are Greg…” 

He motioned to the older man.  “Pastor Peter Moore…” 

He pointed to the robot.  “And his son Connor.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Connor said in an echoing, metallic voice.

“Pastor Moore has helped me with a couple cures before, and provided more assistance to other Xanadu victims, too, after his son became one.  He’s letting us use the Old McKellen Road Church for this event.  We’re pretty far from any residences, and the ones that are near don’t have any Xanadu victims who might want to keep their changes living in them.”

“That’s enough about me,” Pastor Moore said.  “We set aside the church’s gym for this, please, come inside.”

He motioned for the two newcomers to follow him.

“Be careful crossing the lawn, though,” Greg said.  “The yard has a fire ant problem!  The little buggers can even get under dragon scales.  Watch for their mounds.”

Pastor Moore shook his head.  “Yes, yes, we’d tried to bring in pest control before this, but they didn’t have any appointments that soon.”

Richard followed the group back to the church’s double doors.

“Jay, follow Moore,” Richard said.  “He’ll show you where to put your sword until the big event.”

“No problem,” Jay said following the Pastor.

Richard watched as a nervous crowd of Xanadu victims, as well as handfuls of their unaffected friends or relative, sat, stood, or milled around in the gymnasium.   There was a man in a plague doctor outfit, and a vampire that had agreed to be bound until cured, both of whom kept careful distance from the others.  A centaur and a mantis-like alien, both of whom barely managed to squeeze through the gym’s large doors, stood anxiously in opposite corners.  One crowd consisted of four furries of various species, as well as two elves and two dwarves, who, despite not being as inhuman or inherently dangerous as the others, had decided they were tired of being outcasts.  One man had wheeled in a bronze statue of a woman that was just a little too life-like.  The Hunt family had arrived and were anxiously clutching a familiar card.  And lastly, there was a small handful of seemingly normal people who had shown up, saying they had been cross-dressing at the con, or had been dressed as their favorite characters on more realistic shows, and were tired of being confused for an actor.

All of them had arrived in the hopes of finally getting the cure they’d so desperately needed.

“Quite a crowd, huh?”  Greg asked, sticking his head through the open double doors, not quite able to fit the rest of his body through.

Richard sighed and shook his head.  “It’s not even one percent of all the Xanadu victims out there. I just can’t help worrying.  What if it ends up being like the Solomon’s Seal case, and the ‘cure-all’ ends up ‘curing’ itself too?  All this secrecy might backfire on us.  Who knows how many people we could help if we could just be more open about it?”

Greg sighed.  “I know, man, I know.  But if we made a big, public announcement, we’d have dozen idiots like Stormbreaker trying to steal the cure so they’d never have to worry about losing their powers.  I might be a dragon, but I’m still just one guy at the end of the day.”

“There’d be superheroes created by Xanadu who’d be willing to help,” Richard countered.

“Sure, but how many would want to risk getting caught in the blast and losing their powers?  Plus, if your contact at Project X is right, the higher ups are getting antsy after losing a squad of trained Xanadu victims.  Doesn’t matter how many on the ground level are genuinely looking for a cure, if the higher-ups are looking to weaponize Xanadu victims, they’re gonna make sure any cures are only used on their terms, if at all.  You’d be fighting the government AND paranoids like Stormbreaker.”

Greg glanced toward the plague doctor and vampire.

“Frankly, we’re lucky if sneaking those two out here doesn’t end up costing your contact her job.”

“I know,” Richard said, “but still, restricting it just to the people we could trust to keep it a secret feels wrong.”

Even then, Richard was frustrated at just how few people, of those he could trust to keep quiet, had agreed to come.  Some had been visiting from out of state, or even out of the country, when they’d been caught up in Xanadu, and had since returned home, but now couldn’t afford to return to Florida.  Others, either skeptical it would work at all, or worried that mixing two different types of magic would end disastrously, simply refused to come, no matter how hard Richard tried to drive home that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

And then there were those who had agreed to come, but still hadn’t arrived.  Richard looked at his cell phone, then turned to look outside.

“Kay texted saying she and her friends are stuck in traffic, but they should be here within the hour,” Richard said.  “Any sign of Melanie or Lucy?”

Greg looked up to night sky.  “I haven’t seen any…  Wait!”

A shadow flew through the night sky, wings spread wide.  It fluttered down to the churchyard, before landing under the street light, revealing the creature.

“A giant pigeon?”  Richard furrowed his brows in confusion.

“Hey guys,” Hilda said, hopping off the bird’s back.  “Sorry I’m late.  Took a little longer for Melanie and Lucy to get ready than we’d thought, but here they are!”

She pulled three red and white balls out of her pocket, opening each of them one after the other.  In three flashes of red light, Lucy, Melanie, and Hilda’s Durant all appeared.

“It feels great to be out of there,” a voice said in Richard’s mind, as Lucy stretched and shimmered her wings.

“Quick,” said another telepathic voice, as Melanie’s eye glowed, “let’s get the Entrainment going so I don’t accidently hurt anybody that might be sleeping nearby.”

“Oh, right, how did that work out?”  Richard asked Hilda, as the ant Pokemon began its odd, wiggling dance.  “How long does the nightmare nullifying effect work, I mean?”

Hilda frowned.  “Not very long, unfortunately.  Thirty minutes is the longest we’ve made it last so far, but it can get disrupted early if she loses consciousness, or takes a nasty hit.  Part of the reason she volunteered to go with me in a Poke-ball.  Still, that should be enough time for you to use the cure.”

Melanie shook her head and blinked a few times after she finished her half of the dance.

“That always feels so weird,” she said.  “But I’m ready to go now.”

“Great!”  Hilda gave a thumbs up, then tossed one of the balls at Durant, who disappeared in another flash of light.  She climbed back on the pigeon.  “I’ll see you guys when you’re human again!”

“Wait!”  Richard said.  “You don’t want to stay and get cured, yourself?  What about your pigeon and ant friends, there?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Hilda said, sitting up on her pigeon Pokemon’s back.  “I’m not exactly thrilled to go through my teens again, but it’s actually because of these guys that I’m getting as far as I can from your ‘anti-magic-bomb’s’ blast zone.” 

She patted the pigeon’s neck, and it cooed in response.

“My Pokemon crew weren’t cosplayers like Lucy and Melanie.  Before Xanadu, they were nothing but plushies and key-chains that I’d been using as part of my Pokemon Trainer costume. I figure, we don’t know how this magic thing works; sure, maybe if I send these guys home and stay myself, I’ll be the only part that goes back to normal, and they’ll be okay at home, even if they get confused when I get back looking like someone else.  But if it turns every part of my costume back to normal, well…”

She ruffled her ride’s feathers.

“I don’t think I could live with myself.  N didn’t come for the same reason.”

“Fair enough,” Richard said.  “I’ll see you around.”

“Goodbye!”  Hilda said, turning her Pokemon around, and flying back the way she came.

Richard turned back to Lucy and Melanie.

“So, did N or Hilda relay my message to you two?”  He asked.  “About my own difficult case?”

“Yes.”  Lucy nodded.  “I’d be happy to provide backup for you.”

“Same here,” Melanie added.  “This curse of mine has caused a lot of pain.  If I can do one good thing with it before I get back to normal… Well, I won’t say it’ll all be worth it, but it’ll be better than if I’d just sat and waited for the cure.”

“Thank you both!”  Richard said, with a small bow of his head.  “Please, follow me.”

He led the two of them through the gym, drawing a few eyes from the other Xanadu victims, and into a side classroom.  Pastor Moore was waiting for them, standing beside a cot, with a pair of handcuffs.

After a quick introduction, Moore handed the cuffs to Richard, who got on the cot.  He put one cuff around his wrist, and attached the other to a nearby rack.

“Now, Moore, remember, when I wake up, don’t let me out unless I answer the password.”  He paused.  “On second thought, Shadow Puppet might be able to read my mind while possessing me, I don’t know for sure.  It might be a good idea to check with these two, first, to see if everything went to plan.”

“I’ll remember,” Moore said.  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s the only option I can think of,” Richard sighed, laying back.  “I don’t know how long this will take, but hopefully, everyone else will have shown up by the time it’s done.  Once you’re sure I’m possessed, go make sure everyone is here, then touch the Piece of Void to the Shard of the Creator.  If I’m not cured after that, exorcise me.  And if it looks like things might go pear-shaped even before then, you can go and put them together immediately, or shout for Jodi to.  She knows where I kept them, too.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Alright.” Richard took a deep breath.  “Melanie, Lucy, I’m ready when you are.”

A dark orb appeared around Melanie’s hand, which she threw toward Richard.  The world around him went completely black, and he felt incredibly tired. 

For the first time in months, he fell asleep without a ward against Shadow Puppet.

*

Richard found himself standing in a grassy field at night, the only feature for miles around being a tall stone tower.  Not usually a scene he saw in his dreams.   He had a good guess that it was Shadow Puppet’s doing.

A bright pink ring appeared a good distance across the field from him, out of which Lucielle floated.  She looked around for a moment, confused, before spotting Richard, and floating over to him.

“Hello again, Richard,” she said, the words coming out of her beak as she moved it, this time.

“I guess telepathy’s redundant in a dream, huh?” Richard asked.

“Yes,” she replied.  “Apologies it took me a moment to follow you.  Normally, when I enter a dream, I’m a little closer to the dreamer.  I wonder if Shadow Puppet’s power might be interfering, here.”

Melanie rose up out of Richard’s shadow, and glanced at the top of the tower.  An orb of darkness appeared around it for a moment, then vanished.

“Andy’s up there,” Melanie said, also forgoing telepathy.  “I can feel it.  Let’s go.”

Despite how distant it had looked, they reached the tower in only a few steps, finding a wooden door on its side, that opened to long spiral staircase.

Richard took the lead, climbing up the stairs with Lucielle and Melanie close behind.  There were no handrails, no decorations, no windows, and no variations in the architecture, not even any torches or candles to serve as a source of the staircase’s dim ambient lighting.  Just stone steps, stone walls, and stone ceiling. 

“Stay out of sight when we get to the top,” Richard said.  “He and Andy are linked, so if anyone attacks him, Andy gets hurt, too.  I want to keep this from turning into a fight, if I can.  If it’s just me, offering myself to be possessed so Andy can be free, Shadow Puppet probably won’t suspect anything.  If he thinks my offer is too good to be true, or looks like he’s up to something, then you can act.  Maybe we can force him to make a bargain to possess me, or in the worst-case-scenario, stall him; maybe dreaming about him while the cure activates will turn him back to normal.  Got it?”

“Yes,” Lucielle nodded.

“No problem,” Melanie said, giving a thumbs up.  “We’ll stick to the plan.”

Time always seemed to feel distorted in Richard’s dreams.  The stairs seemed to move faster and faster under Richard’s feet, the further and further he climbed, but the lack of decoration or variation in the world around him left him wondering if he was truly going anywhere.  Had he only been her for a few minutes, or hours?  Neither he, nor Lucy or Melanie, seemed to be getting tired. 

On and on they climbed.  Just as Richard was wondering if the tower even had a top, they stood in front of a wooden door. 

Richard took a deep breath.

“Remember: stay back here and listen.  Only come out if it seems like something’s going wrong.” 

With that, he stepped through the door.

The top of the tower was a plain, circular platform, divided in half by a dark curtain, suspended in the air without any kind of rods, ropes, or poles.  In front of it dangled the limp form of Shadow Puppet.

Its head lifted up as Richard approached, though it remained tilted slightly.

“Ah ha ha ha!  Richard!”  Shadow puppet’s arms flailed wildly as his body rocked in laughter.  “So nice of you to finally join me in the dream world!  Andy and I have been so lonely after all these months, you know?  You haven’t been a very good friend.”

Richard sighed and braced himself.  “Yes, I know.  I’m here to get Andy out.”

“Oh, a heroic last stand, is it?”  Shadow puppet’s body and head straightened up, while he held a fist over his heart, his other limbs dangling lifelessly, before floating closer, and tapping his head.  “Or have you finally got some sense, and are here to let me out and help this miserable world have some fun?”

A cage suddenly dropped out from the sky, dangling from a rope that never seemed to end.  Seated within, was Andy, once again gagged.  His eyes widened when he saw Richard, and rapidly shook his head, motioning for Richard to leave.

“I promise,” Shadow Puppet said, “Once I’m outta here and I’m making the world into my playground, you and Andy can each have your own little personal paradises somewhere I’ll never bother either of you.”

Richard took another deep breath.  “Yes, I’m here for one of your puppet strings.”

The purple flames that made up Shadow Puppet’s face twisted into a smile.  “Glad to see you’ve finally caught on!” 

One of Shadow Puppet’s hands lifted into the air, and closed into a fist, a purple flame appearing around it briefly, before vanishing.  He lowered it again.

“Come and get it, Richard!”

Richard slowly stepped closer and closer, holding out his hand.  Shadow puppet rested his fist on Richard’s empty, outstretched palm.

“Now, close your fist around it, and squeeeeeze it as tight as you can, okay?”

Richard tightened his grip around Shadow Puppet’s cloth fist as it released what it had been holding.  The puppet pulled his hand back, and Richard, ready to have all his control ripped away from him, squeezed as hard as he could.

A “PPPHHFFTTT” noise came from his hand, and Shadow Puppet reeled back in laughter, kicking his legs and clutching his arms around his stomach before his limbs tangled up in themselves.

Confused, Richard opened his hand, and saw…

“A whoopee cushion?”

The wooden crossbar above Shadow Puppet shook a few times, before he untangled.

“Great gift huh?”  A hand moved in front of Shadow Puppet’s head as it shook to mimic the subtle bob of snickering.  “I know it’s not exactly what you wanted, but to be fair…”

The purple flames that made up his eyes burned a blazing white, and his voice raised to a deep, deafening roar.

“…I’d wanted you to come alone, didn’t I?  We don’t always get what we want!”

The door Richard had come from launched just past him, propelled by a purple blast of magic.  A second and third blast followed, accompanied by Lucielle and Melanie skidding to a stop on either side of Richard.  They shook themselves off as they got back up, glaring at Shadow puppet.

Shadow Puppet’s eyes faded back to purple, and he smiled.

“I warned you not to bring any dream walkers into this, but I guess I can’t blame you for trying.”  He giggled again.  “Plus, you also brought me the perfect vessel for possession anyway, so I can’t stay mad at you too long!  Why take some boring, powerless, goody-two-shoes of a human, when I could add my own incredible power over dreams to a god of dreams or nightmares?”

“We’d never make a deal with you!”  Lucielle scoffed, her eyes glowing, before firing a pink, crescent-shaped wave of energy from her wings.  Shadow Puppet narrowly moved out of the way.

“Maybe YOU wouldn’t, but your friend Melanie seemed pretty desperate.”

Richard and Lucielle looked to Melanie, who suddenly shuddered and jerked into the air as if lifted by strings, before shifting into a copy of Shadow Puppet, then vanishing in a puff of smoke.

“What the-?”  Richard stammered.

“Shape-shifting and cloning myself are such fun powers!”  Shadow Puppet said with a giggle.

“Where’s the real Melanie?!”  Lucy shouted, another crescent wave firing from her wings, this one cutting one of Shadow Puppet’s strings.

He and Andy howled, each of their arms going limp, before Shadow Puppet’s blazing smile burned brighter.

“You’re a little late for the prologue, but that’s okay, the REAL show’s about to start!  Let’s raise the curtain on a world of waking nightmares!”

The dark curtains parted, revealing Melanie floating in the middle of a horde of fallen Shadow Puppets, breathing heavily as she faced away from Richard and Lucy.  Just below her, Richard saw… Himself? 

His copycat lay on the floor, with an arm raised toward Melanie.

“This didn’t work,” the copy said.  “He suspected us.  Just get us out of here, and I promise you, I’ll get you back to normal, and we’ll make sure that the Raven can never hurt anyone, ever again.”

“Sure…”  Melanie panted, reaching down to grab the copy’s hand.

“Mel!  No!”  Lucy shouted.  “That’s a fake!”

Melanie turned back in surprise.  “Lucy?”

But before Richard or Lucy could interfere, the fake Richard grabbed Melanie’s hand, his eyes and hand glowing purple.

“A deal’s a deal!”  The fake said, dropping his disguise.  “See you losers later!”

*

Richard woke up with a start, before his arm was yanked back by the cuffs.  Lucy shook herself out of trance a moment later.

“Is that you, Richard?”  Moor asked, keeping himself a healthy distance from Richard.  “What’s the password?

“Never mind the password!”  Richard stammered.   “Melanie, are you okay?”

Melanie laughed softly.  She opened her eye, which had gone from pale blue to a deep purple

“Oh wow!  Hard to imagine the biggest fool here isn’t the one dressed like a jester!”

Chapter Text

“Let’s see here…” Shadow Puppet said, raising Melanie’s arm.  “Dark Pulse!” He launched a wave of dark energy into Lucielle, who cried out in pain as she was thrown back against the wall, then slumped to the ground.

Moore jumped back.  “Melanie, what are you doing?”

“She’s possessed!”  Richard stammered.  “Shadow Puppet took her instead of me!”

“The power of a nightmare god in the waking world,” Shadow Puppet said telepathically, looking down at Melanie’s hands, still crackling with dark energy.  “I could get used to this…  Still, why settle for just causing nightmares in people’s sleep, when I can shoot for making a world of waking nightmares?  That piece of the void is just the thing my ritual to merge dreams and reality needs to get off the ground.”

“No,” Richard whispered. 

What had he done?  This was supposed to be the cure!  This was supposed to save people!   If he couldn’t stop this, he’d be responsible for the suffering of millions, if not billions, instead!

Finally regaining his nerve, Moore rushed to get Richard out of the cuffs.

A dark orb appeared around Melanie’s hand as Shadow Puppet turned her to face Moore.  “Take a nap, sap!  Dark Void!”

The orb hit Moore squarely in the chest, then grew to envelope him, before vanishing. He shuddered, blinking a few times as he slumped over, trying to support himself of the wall, before falling to the ground, eyes shut.  It only took a few moments more for him to start convulsing and shouting in his sleep.

“Hah!”  Shadow Puppet laughed.  “With this body, it’s like I don’t even have to TRY to make people suffer!”  He turned back to Richard, another dark orb forming.  “Heh heh heeee!  Don’t worry, Richard; when you wake up from your next nightmare, this whole hideous world will ALLLLL be just one big bad dream!  Dark Void!”

The orb launched toward Richard, and-

“Safeguard!”

…Hit a thin, glowing wall, dissipating on contact.  Lucy had forced herself back up, but she was still panting heavily.

Shadow Puppet snorted.  “Don’t know when to stay down, do you?  Guess it only makes sense a moon goddess would be a lunatic.”

Melanie’s hand began to crackle with dark energy.  “Oh well, won’t take long to finish you.”

The orb on Lucy’s head glowed brightly.  “Jay!”  Lucy ‘shouted’ telepathically.  “The cure!  Use it!”

Melanie’s eye widened. 

“You little-!” 

Shadow Puppet forced Melanie to sink into the shadows, and darted under the door to the gym.

Lucy’s wings glowed, and a pink wave of energy, in a crescent shape, flew from her wings and sliced straight through the chain on Richard’s cuffs.

“I’ll wake up Moore,” Lucy said, “then help anyone else that monster catches!  You get the cure going!  And be careful!  My Safeguard will keep him from putting you to sleep, but Mel’s other attacks will still hurt.”

Richard nodded, and ran back into the gym.

It was chaos.  Dark orbs flew left and right across the gym. Sleeping bodies lay scattered every which way across the floor, screaming and shuddering in the throes of nightmares, while those still awake tripped over the fallen in mad dashes to avoid the same fate.  Jay lay in front of the open supply closet, struggling to stay awake as he tried open the jar containing the Piece of the Void. 

“Hah ha ha haaaa!”  Shadow puppet laughed as the last man had dropped to the floor, howling in fear.  “Look at ‘em scream!  This is the best!”

A dodgeball flew into Melanie’s face, disrupting the barrage of sleep-inducing orbs.  Shadow Puppet growled as he regained his balance and looked for the source of the attack. He just barely managed to block a second dodgeball, before glaring down at his robotic attacker, Conner.

“Can’t put the tin man into sleep mode, huh?”  He snarled.  “Fine then!  How about I freeze your CPU instead?  Ice Beam!”

A thin, white beam flew from Melanie’s hand, and struck the floor beneath Conner, forming jagged clumps around his feet and legs.  His servos whined as he strained to break it, then his whole body started to whirr.

Shadow Puppet hovered over Jay.  Richard ran to intercept, but Shadow Puppet casually hurled a pulse of dark energy at him, the blast knocking him on his back, and the pain of the crackling energy making him shudder.

Shadow puppet turned back to Jay, his eyes just barely fluttering open.  “Yeesh!  You teenagers always refuse to go to bed at a decent hour, don’t you?”  He jerked the Piece of the Void from Jay’s hands.  “I’ll be taking this!  Yoink!”

He held the jar out in front of him.  “Oh, aren’t you beautiful?”  He turned back as Richard forced himself back on his feet.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to blow this popsicle stand!” 

Richard faintly heard a cracking sound from across the gym, before another dark pulse blew the doors off their hinges.  “See you later!”

But before Shadow Puppet could run for it, a pair of metal arms held him back, and he let out a pained scream, dropping the Piece of the Void.

“Yeeeow!  That burns!” 

Shadow puppet thrashed in the Conner’s grip, struggling to break free.

“Overheated… Self…” Conner groaned.  “To melt… ice…  Makes my…  metal shell… hot too…”

Seeing his chance, Richard shook off the pain as best as he could, and grabbed the Piece of the Void.  He tucked it under his arm, and reflexively ran as fast as his legs could carry him away from Shadow Puppet.

Only to realize as he was almost at the door that he’d also been carrying it away from the Dreamsword.

He turned around, just in time to see Melanie’s whole body crackling with dark energy, before releasing it a small, spherical burst around her that sent the overheated robot tumbling back.  Melanie’s eye locked on him as Shadow Puppet forced her to ready another dark pulse, dashing toward him.

“I’m gonna squash you like a BUG!”

Richard bolted out the door, narrowly rounding the corner in time to dodge the blast. 

Bugs! 

His thoughts raced as he kept running, hardly even sure where, now. 

Melanie mentioned something about bugs in their first meeting!  What was it?

“Richard!”  Greg gasped.  “What’s going on?”

“Dark Void!”  Shadow Puppet screamed.  A large orb struck and enveloped Greg, who fell to the ground with a crash, before thrashing violently all around him with his claws, spitting jets of flame at monsters only he could see.

Shadow Puppet himself emerged a moment later, directing Melanie’s eye left and right as he looked for Richard.  The moment he found him, Shadow Puppet flew across the yard.

Richard ran for it, trying to find some way to stall Shadow Puppet and get back to the Shard of the Creator.  His mind raced, before settling on just doing a loop around the church; going straight back now would be running right into Shadow Puppet’s arms.  He ran toward the side of the building.

Until Greg launched another jet of flame in his sleep, the fire cutting across the lawn and blocking Richard’s escape.

He jumped to the side of another pulse of darkness, looking for something else he could use, as shadow puppet flew in closer. 

Then it came to him.  He ran through the yard, as Shadow Puppet closed in.  His target was just a few feet away! 

Then a dark pulse hit him from behind, and he fell to his face, the Piece of the Void knocking around in its container as it sailed through the air, landing on a soft, raised clump of dirt.

It was the best Richard could do.  It was literally out of his hands, now.  He could only hope they’d react in time.  He mentally apologized to Andy and Melanie.

Shadow Puppet flew between Richard and the Piece, holding out a hand crackling with dark energy as he backed up toward the jar.

“I’m sick of you messing with my fun!”  Shadow Puppet growled.  “I was hoping to leave you alive to writhe in my endless nightmares!”  Keeping an eye on Richard, Shadow Puppet made Melanie pick up the jar containing the Piece in her unoccupied hand, and tuck it against her chest.  “But maybe I’ll have more fun just killing you, instead!  Then nobody will be able to stop me from making my dream world!  A world where I’m the god of a waking nightm-”

Shadow Puppet’s telepathy was cut off as Melanie let out an ear-piercing, unearthly shriek.  The jar fell to the ground, the arm that had been holding it thrashing wildly to shake off the dozens of little reddish-brown dots crawling all over it, and her chest.  A swarm of fire ants had crawled up on the jar that had disturbed their anthill.

Richard smiled despite his panting, as he forced himself upright, thankful he’d remembered Melanie’s vulnerability to bugs.

“Richard!”  Lucy’s telepathy rang out, she flew outside, carrying the Dreamsword in her beak.  She flung a sparkling substance from her wings as she passed Greg, and his thrashing calmed down into a peaceful sleep.  “I’ve stopped the nightmares!”  She flung it toward him, telekinetically slowing it just before it reached him.  “Use it!  Use it!”

Richard grabbed the sword, and lifted it above his head with both hands.

Melanie shook off the remaining red ants, briefly clutching her swollen arm in her other hand, before Shadow Puppet realized what was going on.  He dove for the Piece of the Void, just as Richard swung down the Shard of the Creator, the Dreamsword, shattering the jar.

There was a blinding flash of light, and a deafening crash.  Richard could feel himself getting tossed back by the blast.  Yet, despite it, he swore he could see Melanie’s body thrashing and screaming, as the souls of Andy and Shadow Puppet, transparent and glowing, were ejected from her, Andy quivering weakly, and falling to the ground, while Shadow puppet clutched at his head, screaming silently as even his soul was torn to little more than scraps of cloth.

When Richard’s senses came back into focus, he could hear excited cheers, and tearful reunions. 

But naturally, there was one ex-Xanadu victim that concerned him most of all.

“Andy?” 

He got up.  Looking around for a black and purple costume was difficult in the dim light of the street lamps and the dying embers of the burning grass, but he soon saw the Shadow Puppet costume, the distinct crossbar sticking out from a metal pole on the back of Andy’s costume.

“Andy!” 

He ran to his friend’s side, carefully raising Andy up and pulling off his hat and mask. His eyes were shut.

“Are you okay, man?”  Richard asked, patting over Andy’s chest, looking for any hint of injury. 

Andy let out a groan, shaking his head slightly.

“Andy!”

Andy’s eyes slowly opened.  “R-Richard?  Is that you?  Am I actually awake?”

“Yes!”  Richard nodded.  “The nightmare’s over!”  He hugged his friend tight, who grunted slight.

“C-careful…  I’m still waking up.”

“R-Right, take as long as you need!”  Richard nodded.

A short distance away, a young woman in a black cloak-like costume steadied herself, taking deep breaths.

“Melanie!”  Shouted another woman, this one in a blue and yellow outfit with pink sashes.  She darted up to Melanie and hugged her tight. 

“Lucy!”  Melanie shouted back, returning the hug. 

“Are you alright, Mel?  I was so worried!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Melanie patted Lucielle’s shoulder.  “Did you manage to wake everyone up from their nightmares before…”

Lucielle nodded emphatically.  “Yes!  Yes, I did, don’t worry!  Everyone’s safe!  You don’t have to worry about causing nightmares ever again!”

Melanie breathed a sigh of relief.  “Thank God…”  She looked down at her outfit.  “As soon as I can get some real clothes, I am burning this costume and never looking back.”

Lucy laughed.  “I’m right with you!”

Andy weakly laughed with them.  “Hah, I can get behind that.”

“I think a lot of people here’ll be happy to join you,” Richard added.

Chapter Text

Two Weeks Later

Dr. Dyson sat across from Richard at his desk, notepad in hand.  Richard tried not to make it obvious he was glancing at his clock.

“And this ‘Shard of the Creator,’ do you still have it?”

Richard sighed.  “Yes, Jay let me keep it as a souvenir.”  He reached behind his desk, and pulled out a glitter-coated plastic sword, which he set in front of the doctor.

Dyson raised an eyebrow.  “That’s it?”

“Like I told the press,” Richard said, “Once the blast went off, it went back to being just a prop.”

Try as they might have to keep it all a secret, even the most trustworthy people in the world couldn’t exactly hide a change of species when they went back to work or school the next day.   With enough constant questions, at least one person was bound to slip up eventually, and thus the press had resumed its invasion of Richard’s personal life in full force, as thousands more rushed to the Xanadu Think Tank forums.  And of course, Project X and the Winters-Stark Foundation both were determined to squeeze him for every drop of information about how the cure worked, no matter how many times he gave them the same answers, or how many appointments he’d set for others.

“Believe me, I’m as disappointed as anyone,” Richard said.  “While I knew it was possible our ‘cure-all’ would ‘cure’ itself too, a part of me hoped it would be re-usable, too.  I wanted to let everyone who needed a cure go back to normal.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us?”  Dr. Dyson asked.  “We could have used all of Project X’s resources to get everyone back!”

No point in lying now.  “We suspected that if Project X thought this was a one-time cure, it would be very reluctant to use it, or would try to use it as a ‘nuclear option’ to threaten more powerful individuals into compliance.”

For a moment, Dyson looked like he wanted to object, but he simply sighed.  “Understandable.  I suppose the same is true for the other component?  The ‘Piece of Void?’”

Richard nodded, pulling a scrap of black cloth out of his drawer and setting it on the desk.

“Before you ask,” Richard said, “I don’t know where the Lord of Void is now.”

It wasn’t a lie.  If Hilda’s theory about all parts of a costume being returned to normal if any one part was caught in the blast was true, ‘The Lord of Void’ may well have gone back to being Victor Owens.  While Richard suspected the Lord of Void was still secluded in that old cave if he wasn’t cured, he hadn’t visited since he’d first obtained the piece, not wanting to lead the army of reporters that were hounding him to the place.

“I see.”  Dyson nodded.  “Regardless, I would like to take these back for study, if that’s okay?”

Richard got the sense that despite the last three words, the ‘question’ was merely a formality.

“Sure, you can.”  Richard looked down at his watch again.  “Will that be all?”

“That should be everything, yes,” Dyson said, picking up the items with rubber gloves, and moving them to large plastic bags.

“Great,” Richard said, standing up.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment at the apartments.”

Once the doctor had left, Richard got into his car, Andy and Greg both along for the ride.

“You two sure you want to come?”  Richard asked.  “The toons that have taken over those apartments have a bit of a reputation.”

“What else am I gonna do?”  Andy shrugged.  “Submit more resumes?  I’ve got some job interviews lined up, but they’re still a few days away.”

“Yeah, I’m in about the same position as him,” Greg said.  “It’s a little tricky to explain why the last nine months, I switched my occupation to ‘air-lift specialist,’ and am suddenly leaving the field of aviation.”  He chuckled.  “Besides, you helped us get back to normal, I figure, why not try to help people need that, too?”

Richard smiled.  Between the press, consulting Xanadu victims, and his accounting job, his life was more hectic than ever.  But seeing his friends back to their old selves smiling and laughing beside him made it all worth it.

The nightmare was over.

Chapter Text

Topic:  Shapeshifting device (Thread locked by moderator)

NotFelix:

Hey there!  Just learned about this place from a friend, and I thought I might have something that could help a lot of people.  I was at Xanadu myself, though I ended up looking normal enough that most people wouldn’t guess it; I’d managed to be one of the first let out of Xanadu when the quarantine lifted, and I snuck a magical device out through inspection without anyone noticing, too.

It looks like an ordinary portable cassette tape recorder, out of date, but nothing that triggered any red flags otherwise. It’s actually from an indie Pokemon-style game; if you use it to record a monster’s cry, and play the tape back, the person holding it can actually BECOME that monster.  That might seem kinda limiting at first, but any creature that can work the buttons can do it. In the source material, a robot, and even a dog had used it.  And the definition of “monster” can be pretty broad, too.  It can’t record humans, but there are things it CAN record that come pretty close!  Case in point:

<Image deleted>

That form can talk, and has full-dexterity, five-digit, human-like hands.  I haven’t recorded a lot of other monsters, but even if this was the only form available, it would still be super useful for letting people stuck in forms that can’t talk or write communicate, and get to feel like a person again, for a while.

This thing was fun to goof around with when nobody was watching, but I’ve been able to go back to my own life without much trouble, I don’t really NEED it.  I figure maybe someone here could help me coordinate w/ people that could get better use out of it?

TheSTURGE:

Hey OP, can we talk about why that picture looks like some thirteen-year-old’s half-demon, half-angel, ninja-cat-girl Original Character Do Not Steal?

NotFelix:

No.

(Message moderated for spam: less than ten words.  See rule 5.C)

TurnerOfTides (Admin):

Threads discussing use of illegal activities to cure or assist Xanadu victims, (such as use of contraband smuggled out of Xanadu without government clearance,) are prohibited by rule 3.A.  This topic will be locked; consider this a warning.

PM:  On the shapeshifting device

To: NotFelix

From: TurnerOfTides

Don’t worry, that warning will not go on your record.  However, I strongly recommend against publicly posting about sneaking affected items out of Xanadu in the future, even if it “technically” passed inspection.  (Frankly, you should be careful about mentioning that even in private channels, too.  You never know who may be listening.)  If you’re going to talk about stuff like this, don’t mention “sneaking” anything out.  Better to leave a level of plausible deniability by either just saying you “Have” something, or “found” something; over-zealous Project X hackers are less likely to bother double checking the list of thousands of approved items let out if you aren’t acting like you’re hiding something.

As for the cassette player, while I’d like to verify that it works in person, it does sound useful.  Only having one, and it being temporary, greatly limits its usefulness as a true treatment, but like you said, used properly, it can allow people to speak, and feel a little closer to how they were, which can improve their moral, and make future treatments easier.  I’ll set an appointment to meet you, if you want.

Be careful not to lose it. If it works like you say it does, this is something many Xanadu victims, (and I say this without exaggeration,) would KILL for, and plenty of unscrupulous normal folks could come up with plenty of unscrupulous ways to use those monster forms, too.  Stay safe.

PM: RE: On the shapeshifting device

To: TurnerOfTides

From: NotFelix

Glad to hear!  And sorry, I’ll be more careful in the future, thanks.  I’ll set up an appointment when I get the chance.

Also, can I have that modding strike for spam removed?  Sure, it was less than ten words, but it was on topic.

PM:  RE: RE: On the shapeshifting device

To: NotFelix

From: TurnerOfTides

No.

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Topic:  Keeping Warm

TheWizard97:   I had been visiting a friend from out of state when we went to the convention together.  Then the curse happened, and I got turned into a lizard-person by one of those masks they’d been handing out at the front.  I hate it, and I hate the way everyone stares at me now, but for the most part, I’d been able to keep going, and remind myself that at least I’m not dead.

After they let us go, I headed back north and the weather got cooler, I started to feel moodier, and more sluggish in the mornings (not actually slug-like, thank god).  At first I was just brushed it off as depression from having MY WHOLE LIFE RUINED, and maybe a bit of a cold, or something, but as winter’s arrived, it’s gotten so, so much worse.  I can barely get up in the morning unless the heat is turned up high, going outside for even a few minutes starts leaving me drained, at one point I almost fell asleep outside, and if I hadn’t been with a friend, I don’t think I’d have made it back home.

I can’t DEAL with this!  I can’t be cold blooded, man!  Someone tell me there’s any other explanation!  What am I supposed to do?!  I’m not even in an area where it’s cold enough to snow every winter, and it’s already this bad?

ForbiddenBees:  Try moving to Florida!  The gators here do fine all year ‘round!  :P

The4thCutestKitten: I don’t think there’s any other explanation, unfortunately.  But fortunately, I used to live deep in upstate New York, and we get heavy snow pretty regularly, so I know some tips to keep warm.

The first big thing to remember is blankets, thick jackets, and other things like that, TRAP heat, rather MAKE heat.  You need to be warm already for them to keep you warm.  (This is probably pretty obvious to most, but I’d met a few people who moved to New York without knowing this.)  Since your body isn’t making as much heat on its own, you’ll have to rely on other sources to heat you up, first.  If there are tasks you need to do, or hobbies you can engage in while sitting in one place, try sitting near a space heater, or getting a heat lamp to sit under.  This’ll help you warm up and have some heat to preserve.  Electric blankets can help while you’re sleeping, and if you have an S/O, or any pets, and don’t mind them in bed, having them cuddle with you at night could help a little too, especially under blankets.

Things like tents or canopy beds can also work as indoor heat traps, and it’s not too hard to put together makeshift ones.  While it’s obviously risky and not advised to put a space heater directly IN them, it’s a lot easier to heat up one mini-room with a space heater than a whole room, and even just heating one room with a space heater can be easier on the power bill than running the whole house’s heating system.

When you have to go outside, you’ll want to bundle up, in layers when possible, and try to reduce how much air can escape.  Unfortunately, finding a warm mask that will fit your snout might be a challenge, but I know a few tailors who have been willing to do custom-made clothing of all sorts for Xanadu victims, at a discounted rate.  They might also be able to get you some pants that work better with your tail, too.

TheWizard97:  So, this is gonna be a hassle no matter what, huh?  Well, thank you for the advice.  I’ll try to work with it when I can.  Don’t know if I can afford a bunch of heat lamps, but we’ll see.

Ajax33:  If money’s an issue, there’s an aid program by project X to get Xanadu victims who can prove they need help a little extra money.  It’s not exactly a mind blowing amount, and you’ve gotta jump through some hoops to get it, but you can find it in one of the pinned threads.