Dream of Mirror 2; Corners of reality
Ice-Puppet
Authors Note: Aye, so many versions of the same person, I'm getting confused _
Chapter 9 - Recap for the Ignorant
"So let me get this straight," Mihael sighed for the fifth time, one hand against his forehead and the other rubbing at his neck where a huge knot had formed from stress. "Next isn't from this world."
"Correct," Mello confirmed, also for the fifth time.
"Near isn't from this world."
"Also correct."
"But this… 'Nate' is."
"You're three for three, again, your highness."
Mihael gave Mello a glare that made Mello shiver. It was weird, having a copy of yourself send you the glare that you were pretty sure could scare off children- it wasn't that scary, now that he saw it from another point of view- especially since this 'other you' looked a bit different but still had the same face, in the end.
After sighing once more, Mihael dropped his head into his hands. "It all makes sense now," he informed. "The people disappearing-"
"Wait, what?" Matt questioned.
"People have been disappearing?" Mello asked.
"The lack of a bond between us," Mihael went on, ignoring the two. "Or at least from my end… I have a question, though." He glanced up and Mello looked toward Matt, who looked back toward his best friend. They expected the King to repeat his questions for a sixth time, but instead the man asked, "Do all of the versions of Next, or Nate, or Near- whatever his real name is- do they all that that speech impairment where they-"
Before he could finish his question, Obi came running over from the window, her eyes wide. "Mello, Mello!" She cried, tugging on his arm. "Come see!"
"What? The adults are talking, here," Mello snapped, trying to pull his arm away.
"The sky is turning black!" Obi told him.
"What!?" Matt jumped up and ran over to the window, gasping. "Holy shit!"
Mello and Mihael followed, Mail trailing after them. Sure enough, the sky was turning a deep black color- despite the fact that it was the middle of the day- one that was unlike the deep blue of nighttime. Instead it was dark and lacked the light of the sun, the moon, or any stars.
"Shit!" Matt cursed. "This is bad!"
"What's it mean?" Mello questioned.
"It means that this reality is about to fall apart," Matt explained.
"What!?" Mihael squeaked.
"Holand must have followed through with her plan," Matt frowned. "There's no hope now…"
Mello grabbed hold of his friend and shook his shoulders roughly. "Snap out of it, you bastard! There has to be something we can do! We can't give up just like that!"
"He's right!" Mail snapped. "We have a jumper with us, we can simply grab hold of the fourth version and take him back to his own reality!"
"I can do it!" Obi agreed.
"You don't understand!" Matt cried. "There's no way to save a reality once its this far!"
"You always give up too easy, Matt!" Mello yelled, before he backhanded his best friend across the face, roughly. "Get a hold of yourself, damnit! Stop panicking! We'll figure something out, okay? Just get a grip!"
Matt sighed, knowing that there was no getting through to these people. "Fine, FINE- but the only person who can save this world now is the Mirror Kings- they need to combined the powers and since Near has all ten, we have to rely on him." He came to a sudden realization and turned to Obi quickly. "Obi!"
"What?" The little girl responded, staring at him in confusion.
"You said you could track down the other jumpers in this reality to find Kayen, right?!" Matt repeated.
"Yeah," Obi answered with a quick nod.
"Well Next is a jumper!" Matt told him.
Mihael and Mail both stared at him. "What?" Mihael questioned.
"That's how he got to our reality, that's how he ended up with Mello and I!" Matt explained. "He jumped! That's how Obi got her powers- Nate is a jumper too, so his daughter is one! Near is one too!"
"You didn't think to TELL me this!?" Mello snapped.
"Sorry?" Matt offered.
"You'll be really sorry after I beat the CRAP out of you!" Mello screamed, jumping to attack the redhead.
"Guys, GUYS!" Obi cried, jumping between them and pushing her arms out as wide as they would reach. "Lets focus in to the matter at hand, please! I can find Next or Near or daddy, so lets get going!"
"Can you jump four people at once?" Mail questioned.
"Yes," Obi answered, nodding. She then motioned for them to grab hands and grabbed hold of Mello and Matt. "Ready?"
Before anyone could answer they were falling and landing heavily on the ground. Mihael managed to keep his ground but the other three fell over rather ungracefully.
Nate looked up from his place across the cell they had landed in, from where he had his face buried in his knees.
"I hate doing that," Mello groaned before he sat up and glanced around. Finally spotting Nate he asked, "Where are Next and Near?"
"I don't know," Nate breathed, standing up. Obi ran over and he pulled her into his arms, lifting her up. After a moment he continued with, "They were in this cell with me. Holand appeared and attempted to attack Near- Next jumped on him and the two of them disappeared."
"You mean they jumped?" Matt questioned.
"Yes," Nate agreed with a nod.
Obi jumped down and disappeared. Nate stared for a moment until she reappeared with a huge frown.
"Bad news!" She cried. "They jumped out of this reality!"
"WHAT!?" Matt cried.
"They were in some sort of weird building with a bunch of children- but I didn't see Next or Near anywhere," Obi continued.
"Orphanage," Mello paled and looked toward Matt.
"We need to follow them," Matt told Obi, who nodded and got ready to jump again.
"I'm coming with you," Nate said.
"No. That would put four of you in one reality," Matt explained. "And that would tear that reality apart. You have to stay here."
Nate nodded in understanding and sat back down. "Be careful, Piper."
"I will, dad," Obi answered.
She grabbed hold of Mello and Matt and was gone in a flash.
--
When Next had appeared in his living room, the new Mello wasn't sure what to think. But when one of the children came in and told him that he had just appeared in their play room, he was pretty sure that he had gone insane.
But there he was in all his glory, sitting on his butt looking like he had just gone one of those huge roller coasters a Six Flags.
And there was Matt, sitting next to him, and some little girl he'd never seen before but he felt like he knew.
"Okay, what the fuck is going on here?" Mello questioned and the clone of him kind of stared at him in confusion for a few moments before saying,
"Where is Near?"
"Near?" Mello remembered Next going by that name for a while and he frowned. "You mean Next."
"Next, Near, same difference," the clone of Matt said. "Where are they?"
"Tell me what is going on here!" Mello demanded.
"We don't have time, we need to take them back now!" His clone protested.
"Mello!" The weird version of Next dressed in weird, Kimono-style clothing yelled as he ran into the room, Matt following him.
"I told you to watch him!" Mello snapped angrily at the redhead.
"I am watching him," Matt answered idly with a shrug. "I'm watching him run into that other you's arms and kiss hi- oh, my."
Mello turned around and noticed the weird version of Next making out with his clone. "What the fuck!?"
"That's what I said!" Matt's clone agreed.
"I have to get back, the world is going to fall apart without me," the weird Next said in a hurry, pulling away from Mello's clone and looking at the little girl with wide eyes.
"It already is," Matt's clone told him. "Obi, take him back, now!"
"What about Next?" the kid questioned.
"Come back for him," Matt's clone told her.
"But-" she protested.
"There's no time, Obi!" the redheaded clone snapped. "Take them back now!"
"What about you?" Mello's clone questioned but before Matt's clone could answer the little girl was grabbing hold of him and Near and they were disappearing.
Matt's clone turned around and stared at Mello and Matt with a sheepish smile.
"Well," he greeted, holding out his hand. "Name's Matt, but I'm sure you already know that. I've got a lot of explaining to do, huh?"
--
When they returned to the cell it was empty save for a very amused looking Holand standing on the other side.
"What a trip I'm sure that was," she told them. "Too bad in trying to save this world he ended up destroying it." She lifted her hand and quickly cast a spell. Near dropped to the ground, unconscious.
"Near!" Obi cried.
"Shit!" Mello shrieked. "Obi, get us out of here!"
Obi nodded and grabbed hold of them both, disappearing in a flash.
Holand just laughed.
--
They ended up back at the ice palace and Obi fell on her butt, almost passing out from exhaustion.
"Near! Near, wake up! Near!" Mello cried, shaking his albino lover's shoulders but to no avail. "Come on, Near! Wake up!"
"Its no use."
Mello glanced up and spotted Raito watching them from the doorway, looking rather sad.
"She put him under a sleeping spell," Raito told him. "The only way to wake him up is to get a Dream Weaver and save him from his dreams."
"The same way I did last time…" Mello mused, trying to remember how he had gotten into Near's dream. That was right! Kayen had done it! He turned to Obi only to find the little girl unconscious. "Obi!"
"She's probably worn out from all that jumping," Raito explained. "She needs time to rest."
Mello cursed but knew there was nothing more he could do. As much as it pained him to just give up he knew until Obi awoke that they would have to wait- hopefully Holand didn't get to Kayen before they did. Turning, he lifted Near into his arms and Raito did the same to Obi. Raito carried the girl off to Linda's apartment and Mello carried Near into his room.
He laid the albino down on the bed and covered him with the blankets, still pulled back from that morning, when everything had seemed so okay as he awoke. Now things were going to hell- and he didn't know what to do.
--
"His name," Matt's clone pointed to the albino sleeping across the room. "Is Next. But I think you already know that. You've met him before, from what I understand- you knew him several years ago, but one day he disappeared."
"How do you know that?" Mello questioned, looking the clone up and down nervously.
"He re-appeared in a different reality," Matt's clone began to explain, looking tired. "You see, Next is what is known as a jumper. He's able to jump not only from place to place, but from reality to reality. That is why he disappeared- that is how he ended up in the playroom. The little girl you just saw with Near and Mello- the other Mello- is also a jumper. Her name is Piper and she is Near's daughter from a different reality. His daughter with Linda."
"Who is Linda?" Mello asked.
Matt's clone gave him a weird look. "Okay… that's odd." He shook his head. "Let me explain something that is going to sound a little bit off. There are infinite realities that exist currently, different outcomes create new realities. There are also mirrored worlds- worlds that exist exactly as our realities do without even having to think about it. But sometimes things are thrown off kilter. If a mirrored world is thrown off kilter it begins to get damaged and with it, its reflection gets damaged. As you can see," he motioned to the mirror sitting on the desk nearby them. "Next and I have no reflection."
"Weird," Matt said.
"We don't exist in the mirrored reality of this world. Our mirrored selves are back in our own realities, living life normally, probably wondering where their reflections have gone."
"Okay, none of this makes any sense," Mello interrupted, holding up his hands in defeat. "But considering what has happened here, I'm willing to have an open mind about this."
"I would hope so, considering everything that went on with the death note and what not," Matt's clone laughed.
Mello gave him a weird look. "Death Note?"
Matt's clone stopped laughing. "I like this reality more and more with every word you say, Mello."
Mello shook his head. "No one calls me that anymore. Call me M."
Matt's clone smirked. "Okay, M."
"So explain exactly why you are here," M went on, before motioning to Next. "Where has he been this entire time and why are you back here now?"
"Welp," Matt's clone began, sitting back. "It's a long story, but I guess I can do that. It all started when a woman named Holand began attacking this reality that I just came from, the one Next went to after he disappeared from yours. She began destroying this and separating the reality from its mirror. The reality began to fall apart, people and places began disappearing- so the ten mirror kings-"
"Mirror kings?" M asked.
"They're the guys that hold the universe together," Matt's clone explained. "There are ten of them, usually. They each have a specific part in holding the balance in the world. Well, these ten grouped together and decided they needed to fight against Holand, but do so they needed to combined their powers. So they used their abilities and pulled two people into their world- the Mello you just saw and Near, the Next that just left with them. They defeated Holand and Mello gave his powers to Near. Mello left that reality and returned home while Near stayed there because if a mirror king leaves a world, the world crumbles. There's no stopping it, although no one believes me when I say that."
M and Matt looked at each other, both thinking Matt's clone was obviously crazy.
"I know you think I'm nuts, but you asked what was going on, so I'm explaining," Matt's clone snapped, before he continued. "Anyway- two years later Next appears in front of my car and I smack right into him. I take him home and BAM, he's like, well shit, I'm from a different reality and I'm like, no duh dumbass, and he's like, wahhh, take me home, please! So I'm like, okay, okay. So Mel and I go and find Piper, whose a jumper, and she takes us and Next back to his reality. But then I feel guilty because I erased Mel's memories and he doesn't remember that he's got the hots for Near. So we decide to stay and we go to visit Near and Near's like, oh no! I can't get Mello back, I don't want to make Mello sad! And I'm like, you dumb shit! He loves you! And Near's like, Matt, you're so smart! And sexy! And- okay, okay! Don't give me that look! It didn't happen that way! Sheesh. Anyway-"
He took a deep breath and finished off with, "Holand came and kidnapped Next, Near, and Nate, in an attempt to destroy her reality and when she tried to attack Near so Next here brought them to this reality, where I assume he comes from."
"Wow," M said after a few moments of silence stretched after matt's explanation . "I kind of wish I hadn't asked."
Next stirred and opened his eyes, sitting up as he rubbed his eyes rather childishly. He glanced around before paling as he spotted M, Matt, and Matt's clone watching him.
"Shit," he said.
"Shit is right," Matt growled, standing up and advancing on the albino. He grabbed hold of Next's shirt and lifted the boy off the bed, shaking him roughly. "What were you thinking, you idiot!? You've destroyed that reality completely! The only hope we have now is that we can use jumpers to get as many people out as possible!"
"I- was- trying- to- jump- to- someplace- safe- but- I- wasn't- thinking- clearly-" Next tried to get out as his body rocked back and forth, his head moving around like a rag doll. "Matt- please- stop!"
"You're lucky I can't kill you, you bastard, or I would!" Matt screeched before he dropped Next onto the bed. "Now hurry up and take us back before these two catch on and want to come with!"
"What? Next, wait-" Mello started but was too late. A flash of light and Next was gone from his life once again. Just like that.
--
When Next found himself outside of the castle he gasped as he stared up at the sky. It was dark black, no light shining from anywhere around them. Parts of the castle were gone, huge chunks missing out of it, completely vanished as if they had never been built in the first place.
"See?" Matt snapped angrily.
"There has to be some way to stop this!" Next cried.
"There's nothing we can do," Matt told him.
Next shook his head and grabbed hold of Matt, disappearing in another flash of light.
--
Mello glanced up from Near's seemingly peaceful face to look into the colorless eyes of Kayen Reese, who now stood in the doorway, 15 years old and still looking like he could be a child. The teen's hair had grown longer but he still looked like he could be Mello and Near's kid, were that humanly possible. (Or Slyphly, he supposed.)
"How did you-?" Mello asked, surprised to see the albino.
"Next found me," Kayen explained. "And he followed Piper's trail here. I have to say, I'm not exactly happy with what he did, though I can understand it. It seems like it was all in vain, however- how long has he been out?"
"A few hours," Mello explained as Kayen approached, sitting down next to Near on the bed.
"Are you ready to go rescue him again?" Kayen questioned, holding out a hand toward Mello.
"I'm getting kind of sick of it, to be honest," Mello answered before he sighed and nodded.
--
Near glanced up as Mello appeared inside of his dreams- he was sitting amongst the Dream Mirrors, the room illuminated by candles as the world around him slowly disappeared into nothing.
"Mello and I need to stop meeting like this," Near commented idly.
"Agreed," Mello said, holding out a hand.
Near took his hand and stood up, ready to follow the blonde out of his dream world. However he hesitated and stopped, after a few moments.
"What is it?" Mello questioned.
"I can't save the world," Near told him.
Mello frowned. "What? What are you talking about?"
"I can't stop this reality from falling apart," Near told him.
"You can!" Mello protested. "I know you can!"
"I'm not a hero, Mello. I can do what I can do, but in the end this reality will fall apart and we will die."
Mello frowned. "We'll find a way, damnit! You have to have hope, Near! You can't just give up like that!"
Near shook his head only to have it snap to the side as Mello punched him across the face.
Near stared. Mello continued to glare.
"I'm sick of you people giving up so easy!" Mello snapped. "I'm no damn hero either, hell I'm probably more of a fucking bad guy, but I'm not going to just say 'oh, we'll die, eventually' and not even try! Everyone dies, Near! That's a way of life that no one can avoid, no matter what reality you're fucking in! But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to live out our lives to the fullest when we are around! If you give up, damnit, I swear to god I will gather up everyone and have Piper take us away from this reality and we can leave it to crumble!"
Near paled. He didn't want to leave this reality to crumble, not unless he was going down with it- he felt like this place was his child, something he had to take care of… if it was going to go down, he was going to go down too!
"I need the old mirror kings," he said suddenly.
"What?" Mello asked, wondering why Near had something about a completely different subject.
"To save this reality," Near explained. "I need the old mirror kings."
"Why?" Mello questioned. Once they weren't mirror kings anymore they never could be again, so why did Near need them?
"When you give up a mirror king power part of it stays with you until you die," Near explained. "I need their powers if I'm going to stop this."
"Okay. We'll find them," Mello agree with a nod. It was going to be much easier this time, considering they had jumpers on their side.
Near took his hand once more and the two of them left Near's dreams together once more.