For the love of dreams

Chapter 4: A dawning friendship

By: Kara

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Motoko woke up being jostled around in someone's arms, her muscles were weak and aching as exhaustion was washing through her in waves. For quite awhile she couldn't open her eyes… They were just too heavy, eventually curiosity overcame her fatigue and she managed to tear her eyes open to look at whoever was carrying her. Whatever she expected it wasn't the blurry image of the cat-daemon looking down at her.

Groggily she struck out at the daemon, forcing it to drop her as it tried to protect its face. Tumbling out of the daemons grip Motoko managed to gain her footing before she suffered an embarrassing fall that would have probably left her open to attack. The beast had backed away from her, its arms out as if to placate her. Peering through the fog her mind was putting out Motoko could just see the hole that her sword had left in the daemon's overly purple shirt. The blood had left a disturbingly large stain that covered most of the daemon's shirt and also extended towards its pants. Motoko could also see bloodstains on the beast's paws.

Thinking that the monster had attacked her in her sleep Motoko fought down a flood of dizziness and nausea to lash out at the aberration only to have her attack caught and to be held down to the ground with the daemon straddling her. She tried to break free again, but the daemon's grip was too tight. Not that it mattered anyway, she just couldn't summon the strength to fight it. Seeing her lack of strength as submission the daemon relaxed its hold on her so it could inspect her. Taking advantage of the daemons laxity Motoko managed to smash her knee in the creature's nether-regions causing it to scream and let go of her as it rolled away in agony.

'Damn your psychotic, I'm just trying to help!' the daemon bellowed in obvious pain 'you do know your running on empty right? That you used so much of your Ki just trying to get me that you didn't leave enough for basic bodily functions?' Motoko ignored the daemon as she fought back the fog in her head. 'You really need you're rest, after you've had a good night's sleep and a meal you can go back to daemon-hunting.' The daemon slowly rose to get closer to Motoko 'Right now... You need to get some sleep.' It was now cautiously standing over her, talking on a soft insistent tone of voice that seemed so contrary to its brutish appearance. It reached down to her, whether to help her up or force her back down Motoko couldn't tell 'Relax… I'm not going to hurt you' taking its words as a challenge Motoko rose to confront the monster… only to have the fog finally envelope her once again, her ears roaring as she fell into the inky darkness.

Her last memory was of the daemon catching her before she hit the ground.

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This time she woke up lying on the ground surrounded by the chirping of crickets and covered in leaves. She was no longer exhausted, instead she felt quite refreshed, as the cold night air on her cheeks helped to wake her. Opening her eyes she saw the daemon sitting a small distance away from her. It was staring at its paws, flexing its fingers, sheathing and unsheathing its claws and tracing its pads with its finger. If it were human Motoko would have assumed it was inebriated, in the daemons case she had no idea why it was acting the way it was, only that it was too distracted to notice her escape. Slowly she brushed the leaves that had been piled on her away so that she could sit up without any hindrances. When she was done however she noticed that the daemon was looking straight at her.

'Morning, what are you doing?' it asked her curiously, freaked Motoko scurried away from the monster.

'oh come on!' it shouted in frustration 'I am despite what you think I'm not going to hurt you' it pointed to the horizon, it was pale with the light of the sun hidden behind it. 'that's dawn coming! you've been unconscious and thus vulnerable in my presence for more than eight hours and as you can see, your still quite healthy.' it crossed its arms across its ample chest obviously in a huff 'now that we have that sorted out are you going to try to kill me again?'

'I don't have my sword. Even if I wanted to I couldn't' She said as if that would answer its question, the creature nodded as if it agreed with the banal statement, still obviously irritated.
'One of my friends took it when we were both unconscious, she thought that if you had the chance you'd just try to stab me again.' The way the monster referred to a faceless friend reminded Motoko of the strange girl from the dream she had when she had first lost consciousness.

'One of your friends?' she asked trying to confirm who the daemon was talking about.
'Yeah, you haven't met her yet. She's dating Marcus's best friend.' The image of a fiery giant wolf crossed Motoko's mind.
'Marcus? As in the wolf-boy from my dreams?'
'If you're going to be like that I could point at you and scream "Motoko Aoyama? As in the chibi-girl from my dreams?" I'm just as entitled to be shocked by this situation as you' the daemon stated slightly miffed.

'How do you know my name? I have no idea who, or even what you are, but you seem to know who I am with no introduction!' her question seemed to disturb the daemon, its ears pulled pack and its face fell in a manner that clearly illustrated depression.
'You don't know who I am?' Motoko raised an eyebrow at the daemon.
'Should I?' asked Motoko tartly
'Marcus didn't tell you?' the daemon's voice was soft, it sounded betrayed somehow
'He actually took a perverse sort of pleasure out of knowing that I had no idea what was going on.' grumbled Motoko causing the daemon to giggle slightly.

'Clever, I wouldn't let him punish you in the traditional way so he messed with your head instead.' The daemon shook its head and stood up 'but you don't want to hear about my dysfunctional friends you want an introduction' it walked over and extended a hand down to Motoko its ears sat at a jaunty angle

'My name is Tamala Beer… it is an unexpected pleasure to meet you' Motoko stared at the creature's outstretched hand for a moment before deciding to take it, nearly pulling the Daemon down with her.

After regaining her footing Motoko took a few moments to stare at the creature. Its fur looked thick and soft, a light milk-coffee colour with chocolate coloured stripes that grew into a chocolate mane, its eyes were large and a pale shade of green. For some reason it seemed, embarrassed …
'You weren't meant to pull like that' said the d… Tamala 'It was meant to be a handshake.'
'I'm… sorry?'

'No need to apologise! But I'd actually feel better if you stepped back a bit.' Said Tamala 'You're kinda in my personal space' embarrassed, Motoko quickly shuffled away. Neither of them spoke, they were both too disturbed by the whole scenario to really communicate. Five minutes or so passed before Motoko gathered enough courage to ask the strange cat-creature a simple question.

'You're the girl from my dream aren't you?' Motoko couldn't believe that she had to ask, but she still wasn't sure.
'It really isn't that easy to tell is it?' Tamala sighed obviously depressed again.
'How does that work?' asked Motoko confused 'you said in the dream that you looked like how… you saw yourself. How can you see yourself as a human when you like, like… that?' the creature was obviously hurt by Motoko's harsh words

'You make it sound like I'm a leper.' Grumbled the hurt cat-creature, the young swords-mistress flinched, she hadn't meant for her words to be so caustic, it just came out.
'I'm sorry, I didn't me-' the catgirl cut her off with a wave of her paw.
'I wasn't always like this… yesterday I was human, but now… I'm this'
'I'm sorry' said Motoko, the catgirl laughed bitterly for a second before replying.
'don't worry about it, I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose'
'are you implying that I'm responsible for your freaky cat transformation?'

'exactly' replied Tamala 'this is the first time that I've created a mental link with someone and end up being pulled into their respective universe, that and you stabbing me in the gut didn't help.' as usual the catgirls answer only worked to make Motoko even more confused.
'that doesn't make any sense! Wait… I thought you forgave me for stabbing you?'

'I do.' said Tamala calmly. 'But the fact remains that my being stabbed caused me to change even further into this, so even if it isn't your fault that I started changing in the first place (which I highly doubt by the way) the blame still lays on you for at least some of my condition.' Motoko could feel a migraine coming on. Trying to calm herself for a few seconds, she sat down and held her head in her hands. After a few moments she tried asking something else.
'how did stabbing you make you change further? You don't look that different from when I was chasing you.' she asked rubbing her left temple.

'its not that easy to tell really, my hands have been changed to paws and my feet are all wrong' answered Tamala raising one of the legs of her pants to show how her legs were now jointed. 'see? They're like a cats now, they were human before when you were chasing me. Now my balance is all weird.' she looked down at her tail. 'not that this thing didn't mess it up anyway.'

burying her head in her hands Motoko groaned.
'this is too much!'

'would you like me to leave you by yourself? A couple of hours to think helped me sort out most of my problems so far.' asked Tamala, trying to be helpful.
'how will that help? I have some sort of alien-daemon-girl standing in front of me that doesn't make any sense! How can I think about something I don't understand?'
'how about I try explaining myself to you?' asked the catgirl.

'your explanations give me headaches and raise more questions than they answer, I doubt they would be any good to me'

'that's not vary fair.' replied Tamala 'you haven't asked me anything basic yet, you seem to be going for the questions that need a lot of other questions to be answered first.' Motoko sighed,
'vary well' she conceded 'I'll try asking you the basics and we'll work from there' the catgirl clapped her hands in excitement and sat cross-legged in front of Motoko seemingly ready to answer anything Motoko threw at her.

Thinking for a second Motoko tried to come up with a question that wasn't to loaded. She had a feeling that any answer that was longer than a couple of syllables would only confuse her more.

'So what are you? An alien? A monster?'

' a mutant-alien actually'

Apparently she had been wrong…

'Could you please explain that?'

'I'm from an alternate version of earth' answered Tamala 'one where marvels walk among men. gods and aliens battle with scientists and demons and vice-versa… all of these creatures for some reason have an interest in my earth.' she paused to see if Motoko understood when she was sure that she wasn't leaving her audience behind she ploughed on.

'whether it was in response to the super-beings living amongst us, or if it was the natural course of human evolution is unknown, but humans are now being born with strange and incredible powers.' once again she paused and once again she got the go ahead to continue. 'those people are called mutants since they are some sort of genetic deviation from normal humans… I'm one of them. Thus I am an alien from another dimension that is a mutated version of a human. What do you want answered next?'

'why are you here? How come you can enter my dreams?' Tamala whistled
'those are toughies' she said 'I'll try to answer you as best I can but they're both kinda patchy to me as well…' struggling with her words for a few seconds Tamala started absentmindedly brushing her tail with her fingers, it was actually quite bushy towards the end.

'as to why I'm here I don't know' answered Tamala finally 'I don't even know how I got here… its never happened before. I'm guessing that my powers must have activated in a new way. Usually my powers work by connecting my mind with people who live in other dimensions from my own'

'how does that work?' asked Motoko starting to get confused again.

'I'm a bit of a storyteller' replied Tamala 'I like to come up with characters and worlds and play out scenarios in my head. I've been doing it since I was a little kid… when I was about 12 one of the characters that I made up seemed to talk to me. At first I thought it was my daydreaming, but then he started to talk to me more often when I wasn't daydreaming… thought I was going crazy…people who are not really there talking to me and all…' Tamala paused, her head lost in he memories. Eventually Motoko had to clear her throat in order to bring the cat-girl back to reality.

'oh! Sorry! Where was I?' even though she was now talking to Motoko again she wouldn't look at her for some reason

'you thought you were going crazy because you were hearing voices,' answered Motoko patiently,
'and seeing people who weren't there too.. I thought I was schizophrenic! But a couple of years ago my brother and I were fighting and something happened' she paused swallowing visibly. 'he had me in a chokehold… a really good one. I couldn't breathe or anything.' she looked Motoko directly in the eyes. Her gaze was unsettlingly intense, her feline eyes boring onto her own… 'it was when I started to black out that something happened… one of my friends had a temper and didn't like the way the fight was going… he came through somehow and put my brother in hospital.' Motoko gasped

'what did your friend do to him?' asked Motoko, a little horrified that the girl spoke so calmly of one of her family members getting hurt.

'broke his collarbone and smashed a couple of ribs the doctors said that he had a pretty bad concussion when he came in as well' answered Tamala. 'I cant say what happened I passed out when I saw my friend come though some sort of vortex, everything I learned came second hand since I was stuck in hospital for observation for a week or so after I came too… my family forgave me when they heard how the injuries happened and my brother said that there were no hard feelings'

'You summoned someone out of nowhere to beat the living crap out of him, I'd be a bit more petty than to forgive you.'
'the summoning was an accident… it only happened 'cause I seemed to be in mortal peril and my friend was willing enough to help me, those sorts of things usually happen to people like me… anyway he just saw it as a comeback, I had walloped him pretty good before he started choking me.'

Motoko stared at the cat-girl in disbelief

'why do I feel that yours is an interesting home life?'
'cause it is?' answered the catgirl 'anyway everything has been has been going kinda smoothly for the last couple of years.. I managed to get the hang of my summoning ability, and with no knew people walking into my head I thought that my powers were dying down or something… and then this happened'

'and you blame me for you coming here? From what you just said it was the fault of your powers not mine' asked Motoko

'you have to remember… my friend only got pulled to my world because he really wanted to come to me physically… I'm guessing that you wanted for me to come to you when I got pulled into this world.' answered Tamala logically

Motoko was about to refuse loudly when she remembered her trying to summon the "spirit" to her, it was vary possible that she may have accidentally thought about bringing the annoyance to her physically when she made her offer of welcome… which would mean that she was, in some small part… responsible for this girls situation.

'what about yourself?' Motoko asked hoping to find some way to shift the guilt from her shoulders. 'you had to be thinking about me to form this link did you not?' her question for some reason made Tamala shift in embarrassment.
'well I cant answer that honestly… I was asleep at the time…' her confession mad Motoko gasp in shock
'you were dreaming about me?' the whole idea of someone dreaming about her made Motoko a little frightened.
'I guess… it makes sense tho.. You are my favourite character in the show…' Motoko didn't like the sound of that.

'favourite character of what show?' asked Motoko, a definite hint of venom in her voice. Tamala recoiled slightly in fear from the irate swordsmaster.

'Its nothing that big really… you're a secondary character in a popular Japanese cartoon is all…' answered the catgirl, visibly sweating.
'what kind of show?' asked Motoko her rage still simmering.
'ehh… a comedy? Centred around Keitaro?' Tamala was starting to edge away from Motoko now.
'and how many people watch this show may I ask?' enquired Motoko icily.
'enough to make it commercially viable for export?' answered Tamala fearfully, hiding her face behind her arms.
'So most probably over a million people know about my private life then?'
'if its any consolation they think you're a fictional character and don't know that they're spying on you' replied Tamala

'THAT'S NO EXCUSE!' raged Motoko in frustration.

'have you ever watched a television series? Ever seen a movie? Read a fictional book? If you have than your just as guilty as those faceless millions that watched a cartoon series in my world.' answered Tamala hoping to calm Motoko. It was enough to make her pause at the least.

'what about you?' asked Motoko 'you seem to get your powers from fiction shouldn't you have resisted watching that show?'

'firstly,' started the catgirl 'I watched the first episode of that show before I even summoned my friend that first time, I wasn't even sure if I had any powers or not. And secondly' she continued 'its never worked on anyone else's characters before, just the ones that I made up. I had no idea that it might work on you the way it has… Hell I didn't think it would even work at all…' finished Tamala… seemingly trying to convince that her actions were pure.
'are you going to hate me again?' she asked Motoko innocently, the combination of her large feline eyes and her childish demeanour made Motoko feel vary guilty for snapping at her the way she did.

'no I'm not' sighed Motoko 'I'm just going to have to find a way for you to be comfortable here until you can find a way back to your home.' she admitted.
'Really? Why?'
'As you said… I'm partially responsible for you being here, it wouldn't be right for me to leave you out in the cold like this miss Tamala' Motoko answered in her most formal and calm manner. It seemed to put the catgirl off for some reason.

'there's no need to be so formal with me Motoko… you're my friend now, it would be too weird' she stood up, holding her… paw down to Motoko to help her up. Hesitantly Motoko took it.
'how can you be so ready to declare me a friend?'
'its a part of my powers' answered Tamala as she started to make her way to the Hinata. 'everyone who I link with automatically must be a friend… I only link to people who I like after all.'

'If… you say so…' replied Motoko unsure.
'than it must be true!' said Tamala seemingly trying to finish her sentence in a positive note. Seeing no way to continue with that line of conversation Motoko followed her new "friend" back to the dorms. The light of the dawn illuminating their way in a golden hue. It wasn't until they were sneaking their way back inside the building that Tamala chose to speak again…

'Motoko?' asked Tamala quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping tenants and summon oestrogen-fuelled wrath upon herself. '… thankyou for your help…'

'there's no need to thank me.' said Motoko 'I still have to find a way to introduce you to the rest of the girls without them killing you after all…' she thought to herself. She felt like she was living in a Chinese curse, these were proving to be interesting times…

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0-0 wow! Vary long chapter… don't know where it all came from . Anyways I have to get back to this sleep thing that most humans seem to do at night-time.

read, review and recommend to your friends please… the more people who read this the more I'll be motivated to update (I'm not blackmailing you people… really!)

See ya all later!