Chapter One: The Tiny Djinn

It was another night like this, in a place he vaguely felt he should know. A place that was lush with green life, among other things. Today, however, the forest was wilting, the signposts around the trees rusty and inactive. The sky around him was dim, and even squinting, he could only make out outlines of where branches would be. This dream was quieter, but it still make him squirm a little.

Well, to be honest, that was probably the cold.

With no other choice, the dreamer proceeded further, curious like always. Yet this time, there was a strange sort of dread in his stomach. Maybe he knew what was coming. That was new. He rarely repeated dreams, right?

Up ahead, he heard a voice. They laughed. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to chase it or not. They laughed again, closer now. But he couldn't hear any footsteps. So were they moving closer, or was he?

"Great... It's one of those dreams, isn't it? Those creepy ones where things happen despite everything I do..." He gave a sigh. "Alright, who is out there? Some ghoul or monster that wants to gut me and is luring me in with innocent sounds? Haven't had one like that in a while."

Another laugh, and this was closer to his ears. "Gut you?" Finally, he heard footsteps, bare feet gently hitting dirt. "Why would I do that? I think you must play a lot of those...mm?" The pause was followed with an excited jump. "Video games! Yeah, those! That's what they're called."

When he listened, he could hear the voice of a girl. She was hopping from place to place. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see someone, a tiny figure just ahead of him.

They waved. "Hello!"

"Um... Hi. You're, uh, quite friendly there."

They tilted their head. "Yes...?" She clasped her hands behind her back. "Should I not be?"

"My dreams usually aren't. Well, they usually aren't a lot of things. Either entirely empty or things like this place here, only less dead." He waved his arms. "There usually isn't a friendly person in my dreams, either. Usually isn't anyone, unless it's someone killing me. I hate those dreams. You gonna end up doing that too? Because I'd like a warning if you do."

"Mm?" She giggled again. "If I was going to kill you, I wouldn't be waving at you would I?" She spun in place as the light picked up, revealing a dress that reached her knees, a soft red color. The ribbons at the wrists danced as she spun, looking a bit like... well, he wasn't going to think about that. "I hope I don't have to kill you. That would defeat the purpose of me being here, of our call."

"Okay... That makes sense, but dreams can change a lot very quickly." He shrugged. He pursed his lips at her other words. "Like this. Weird dream NPC hinting at some grand purpose for us talking, can't say I've ever experienced that. So what is the purpose for this 'call', then, girlie?"

The girl mussed her blonde locks. "I wanted to meet you at least once," she said. "Before everything, as you put it, 'changes a lot'." She added air quotes at the end of her sentence. "We've been waiting for you, for those like you. I wanted to see what you looked like in this state. I can't say if there's any other reason or not though!"

"Ooookay. I'm gonna need a little more than that to figure out what you mean by that, little lady."

She tilted her head. "Um... that's specific." She giggled. "She's been waiting for you about as long as me. You really should be looking for her." Her smile turned playful. "Bu-ut, maybe I can answer your questions. Only three!"

"Three, huh? Just that specific number... Someone is self styling themselves as a genie. Very well then, little genie girl, as my first question: What's your name? So I don't have to keep calling you 'girl'."

The little girl laughed, and it sounded faulty for just a moment. "A genie huh? sounds cute! Though I'm more of a praying type, myself!" Bright, electric-blue eyes bored into him, almost aglow, then they were normal again. "My name... what is my name?" She frowned, tapping her index finger against her cheek. "Mm... I don't think I have one. But if I think of that person, and I think ofthose people, they would say I am me. Therefore, you can call me Mi!" She grinned, looking proud of herself, chest puffed out and all.

"Huh." That eye color changing had been... Different. "Mi, eh? Cute name, I suppose, for a cute little girl." A little flattery went a long way, after all. "Second question, then. You mentioned someone else supposedly waiting for me. Who else is waiting for me?"

'Mi' laughed. "Probably shouldn't flatter me. That can be misunderstood." She turned to the tree behind her, resting her hands on its trunk. "Hm... An important person to you. You won't believe me if I say it I think, but you will love her. It's like fate... or something." She giggled. "You're going to discover a whole bunch of things about yourself because of her, and she'll do the same because of you. That's how love works in stories, right? In the good ones."

"Fate, huh. That's a rather lame thing, that and destiny. It takes the choice out of things." He wasn't sure on what to say on the other things, to be honest. He didn't particularly believe in love himself, but who knows. If he did purportedly meet this person who was supposed to mean so much to him his mind might be changed. "Final question, then." He had quite a few for his final one but he realized he could only choose one. So he had only this to ask, "What do you mean by everything changing?"

Mi smiled at him. "So cynical despite your youth." She lifted both hands up to the air. "I mean exactly what I said. Your ordinary life is going to go far away~! And it will never come back. You're going to have a grand adventure, make more friends, and become a hero! And if I'm lucky," She looked at him with teary eyes and a smile that shined in the light of the moon. "You're going to kill me."

Her form distorted, skin turning charcoal black and smoking. Three ugly red slash marks tore into her face and dress, leaving open, oozing wounds.

Then, it was gone, and Mi was spinning, laughing carelessly again. "Or maybe you won't! I dunno. There's still plenty of choices remaining, and only choices decide fate."

"... Okay what." Surprise surprise, he was shocked for once in his dream. "What even was that?"

Mi tilted her head. "That was a fourth question," she chirped. Cheeky little child.

"Yes it was, and kind of pertinent to the discussion at hand."

"It is? Well, I dunno if I can satisfy your curiosity. After all, if this is a dream, you shouldn't be dreaming about me at all. The next time we meet, I have to try and kill you, at least a little, so it's probably better you don't get too attached. Just ask your friends, it makes things difficult to clean up."

He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that a dream was being evasive. It was still annoying. "That's not helping me in the least, Mi."

Mi laughed at him. "Why would I help the person who has to kill me? Unlike that person, I have a little bit of self-preservation left in me. If you want answers, search for them yourself. Otherwise, you will just be dragged along at Fate's pace. And then you have no right to complain about how it ends, because you did nothing about it. Does that make sense?"

"Sounds like a video game hook."

Mi looked at the ground. "I hope it catches your attention then." She sighed. "I don't think there's anything else I can do for you, not that there's much I can do as it is." She regarded her hands. "Well... maybe there's one more thing I can do." She began moving closer to him, eyes glowing blue again.

"Um." Why couldn't he move now? Usually he could, but it felt like his body was suddenly leaden with a weight he couldn't shrug off. She came closer. "Um?" She wasn't stopping. Crap, the weird dream child with glowing eyes and ability to change her form was nearly upon him. "I thought I told you to warn me if you got murderous?"

Mi smiled. "I did. I'm not killing you, though,eventually you may wish I was, if only to make it all go away." She looked at him and pouted. "This is gonna be hard. Yours is all asleep and you're technically not here." She shook her head. "Hmph, maybe I shouldn't have hijacked her dream after all. Oh well." She formed a single cube and it rotated around her finger. She gave it a gentle push, letting it sink into his chest. "It will take a bit of time to open, but if it's you, you'll be able to do it." She giggled. "I think that was the hook you were looking for."

"What do you-" Suddenly fireworks when off behind his eyes and he found himself on the ground, curled into a ball as pain blossomed in his chest, molten iron coursing through his heart and into his veins, into every inch of his body. "What... What did you do to me?" He was screaming his question now, even if he merely felt like he was watching what was going on behind his own eyes. A very disconcerting feeling. "Make it stop, please... It hurts!"

Mi crossed her arms. "I told you." Her form distorted once more, once clear tears now red. "Everything is going to change. And we're starting with you." She stepped back. "Now you can feel it. This world is crying. Its people are dying. Now, choose, turn it off and look away, or bear it and make it stop. Choose."

"I want... I want this to stop!" No one should suffer so much. He didn't believe in love but he did believe in charity and helping people. If the world was feeling this, he needed to stop it, or at least lessen it somehow. "Tell me... How do I stop this? How can I make this pain go away from others?"

Taiga a distant voice spoke. The girl didn't seem to notice it.

Mi's expression softened. "Answer," she said, and the distortion shifted into white light, fading into another girl, slightly older. Her purple hair floated to an unseen wind, and her tattered clothes seemed ready to fall off of bruised and battered dark chocolate skin and pile in the grass. She gave him a small, meek smile. "Answer when your dream girl sings for you okay? That's the best option!" She paused and pressed a small hand into his hair. "This is the last face I saw her with, I'm afraid you will just have to guess."

"I... I will." That face was so familiar. He didn't know from where. But then another burst of agony tore through him and left him screaming, trying to breathe.

Taiga! The voice calling to him sounded distressed. He wasn't sure he could answer it.

Mi pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. "Then I'm going to let you go to another dream. Preferably a less painful one. Close your eyes and think of your bed. Remember every little thing from it, until you can't think of anything else."

"All... Alright..." Taiga tried. The bursts of agony in his heart, in his brain, in everything worked to keep him from thinking clearly, but he remembered his bed. The scent of home, the scent of his space, safe from everyone and everything. He remembered all of the nights in that bed, half of them lonely until he'd finally got his V-pet. Then there was always a comforting presence, something that would cover him with the scent of grandfatherly love, such a warmth that it would chase away the cold on even the nights where the heater never worked. He thought of his friends when they came over for sleepovers, of them all cuddling into the sheets and giggling like the children they were. He remembered...

Taiga! At last, my child, I've finally found you. The presence was there at last. A gentle kiss from caramel lips pressed into his forehead as he was lifted from the ground, into strong arms. He curled his fingers into golden fabric of the man's toga unthinkingly, shivering harshly from the residual affects of the agony that had overcome him. Come, my child. It is time to wake up. You are worrying your friends.

Quite so, as there was someone somewhat gently shaking his shoulder. "Taiga," they called, very close to his ear. "Taiga, seriously, do I gotta take you to the hospital? Make a noise or something! Wake up!" The voice was clearly concerned, as the shoves on his shoulder got slightly more intense. "Wake up before Niko elbows you in the spine! Come on!"

Taiga slowly blinked awake, staring up into the concerned eyes of one of his long time best friends - a green haired, red eyed girl who liked to wear less clothing than he'd ever seen another girl get comfortable casually stripping in public or around friends. She seemed glad he was awake now, at least, from, the relief in her anxious eyes. And here he thought she didn't do emotions other than outgoing, hyper, happy-go-lucky girl-

The morning light stabbed into his eyes at that moment, making a burst of pure agony go through his head and leaving him curled up in his sheets, whimpering before he could stop himself. He certainly didn't expect that to happen. Seemed that the pain from that dream followed him in real life...

Rina blinked. "Good morning to you too... hm..." She frowned pensively. Looked like his eyes hurt... probably too much sun! Well, only one thing to do about that! She went to the blinds and closed them. "Niko, he's awake, you can call off the emergency room!" She half-yelled this across the apartment, not knowing that that would probably hurt too. Then, oblivious, she went over and put the pillow lightly over his head. "There, now ya don't gotta see."

She really wasn't aware that it could look like she was smothering him to death, was she?

"Good, because I think they don't wanna hear from us after the last few- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Niko's yelling wasn't appreciated, judging from the groan Taiga gave from under the pillow. The light being gone had been a blessing but he found he didn't like loud sounds as much either. "Get that pillow off his face! He won't be able to breathe like that!"

"Shut up, Niko..." Taiga groaned. "Yelling hour has passed, no more loud..."

Rina blinked. "The lights are too bright and the sound is too loud," she told him with a smile. "So I put the pillow over his head to make it better for him. What, did you think I was trying to choke him or something? You need more pressure for that!"

Of course, another oddity about being friends with Rina was that she would say things like that. She wouldn't have a care in the world about it either.

"... Rina. Get off my bed. I can keep this over my head by myself." Taiga couldn't exactly sound commanding at the moment but he hoped the sentiment was clear.

Rina bobbed her head, despite the fact that he couldn't see it. "Sure, sure!" She hopped off of the bed. "Good thing it's a Sunday, you missed your alarm... a lot."

Taiga let out a disgusted noise. Yes. Good thing it was Sunday, he doubted he'd be able to handle being a person if it had been a Monday. "How... How much?" He asked, voice brittle in his condition.

"It's past noon, dude." Niko came into the room and began to drag Rina away from their friend by the shoulders, just so she'd have less reason to hen. Taiga was notorious about not wanting to be treated like that. He'd been taking care of himself far too long to want to rely on people like that. "We weren't sure if you had a stroke or what."

"... Oh..." Taiga sighed. If possible he sounded even more tired.

"You were making funny noises in your sleep." Rina let herself be dragged, if only to stick her tongue in Niko's face. "I thought you didn't sleep talk." She paused, as if planning to say something more. Then she changed topics entirely. "There's soup being warmed up if you want any. My roommate and I had extra so she said to bring it over!"

"... I'm not hungry." He really wasn't. The idea of eating right now just wasn't pleasant at the moment. He felt nauseous even thinking about it. "You two... Go ahead and eat it."

"If you're sure, man." Niko said after a moment. He began to tug Rina out of the room anew. "Get some rest. We'll check on you again in a bit. Want some asprin and water?"

"If you would..." Taiga replied. He didn't move since Niko got in there, worrying his friend.

Rina regarded Taiga thoughtfully, then moved out of the room. "We'll leave the rest for you. Doubt we'll finish it off ourselves." She left to get the glass of water. As she did, her phone buzzed. "Mm... not the time," she told it. It gave another cheerful buzz.

She would let Niko worry for now. He had almost made a career out of it.

A/N: Welcome to a shonen anime! I mean what.

In all seriousness, welcome to the other cowrite Onixflame and I were working on. He unfortunately has gotten very busy and due to reasons needs to cut back on his writing. So I'm posting these and writing for them now with him as beta. I'm about to repost Enduring too so there's that as well. Please leave us some reviews, as these stories mean a whole lot to us. Thanks so much.

Challenges: Diversity Writing M11. alternate relationship! AU, AU Diversity boot camp prompt - protect (Alternate timeline AU), Prompts in Steps 5.6 - decimate, Epic Masterclass alternate timeline