His name…Well is his name important? I guess to attribute ones actions to a certain being there must be some distinguishable way to discern one sentient from the other. For the sake of distinguishing our antagonist: his name is Doctor Destiny.
His real name was/is John Dee. His birthname was Jonathan Donald Cripps the third but after he told his mother his plans for the ruby, he was forced to change his name.
Oh you want to know about the ruby?
John Dee was exhausted but elated as he entered the diner at 10 PM. He watched excitedly through the windows as he found a nice corner booth. He pulled out the ruby, that pulsed with a curious energy. Other people would feel the pull of sleep, dreams, of restful blackness. John could only feel power and with practiced eased he expanded the pulse to those who have already fallen asleep. A thousand, no millions of people sleeping of adventure, death, and more became known to his inner eye. He hissed in joy. So many people he could touch, infect, there was no privacy to the power of the ruby.
"Can I get you anything?" asked a plump waitress holding a small pad.
John yanked himself mournfully from his reverie. "Just…just coffee, thank you."
"You sure?" the waitress asked. "We have the best cherry pie on this side of the missippi river, I promise." As if her promise of tart treats could ever sustain him like the ruby. He hunched inward pressing the ruby to his chest. "No…just coffee."
"Alright, will do." She sauntered off.
Dee delved back into the power and began to poking around. Jumping into a young man's dream of being a hero like the flash only for Dee to have the flash turn into a giant lawnmower that hunted the child through the maze like streets of his home.
The next one he came to wasn't a dream but a simple daydream. Dee was confused and scared. This man wasn't asleep, he was waiting for the red light to turn green.
The man's daydream was the simplest of male fantasies, in a slick fast red sportscar with a sexy passenger to keep him company.
Could the ruby's power be more broad than I thought, or is growing in power? Only the other day John Dee could barely manipulate the dozens of sleepers in his apartment complex, but now he was tapping into everydream on the timezone.
Can I turn this dull daydream into a waking nightmare? Dee reached out for the daydreaming man's mind. His view changed no longer was he an outside force looking in he now held the man's own viewpoint. Dee's eyes and mind buzzed at balancing between the visual of the daydream and what reality actually was.
The driver's mind would switch between the two. I must strike now! Thought Dee as the driver focused on the traffic light. It was a small minor change an odd shape in the rearview mirror. The driver blinked and turned to rearview mirror. Instead of seeing a stopping car behind him, it was a giant T-rex one would recognize from Jurassic Park.
The man blinked. But John easily held the image. "Motherfucker!" shouted the driver switching from brakes to gas.
Before John Dee had time to watch the conclusion of his experiment, the ruby tore him into another nightmare. A powerful nightmare. It was the first time the ruby acted without his input or direction. Does the ruby have a mind of its own?
Dee had no time to ponder further before he was thrust into a nightmare. A red clad figure was frozen in space as two similar dressed men but in blue and yellow respective proceeded to kill two middle aged people.
Dee watched enraptured. "Oh"
The ruby vibrated in his hands. "Yes." Responded Dee as he took a deep sniff as if smelling a delicious meal.
Dee was about to enact his own twist to the nightmare but the sleeper awakened. Instead of a bright light that would banish Dee when a figure awakened, Dee lingered. Interesting. Dee sensed it then, sleep energy, emotional fear, a je ne sais quoi remained even after waking which kept Dee here anchored.
Like the driver, Dee delved into the viewpoint of the sleeper. But unlike the driver his alteration of one's perception was stronger.
Someone was asking him a question. Dee brought up the image of the blue clad villain and dressed it over the young dark skinned female that approached his new victim. What Dee did not expect was…his victim had powers too.
I'm in the Flash's head. As Barry Allen violently grabbed Iris.
Dee didn't have long to refigure his bearings when a bright yellow lightning roared around him and forced him out of his hold.
Dee opened his eyes to see he was back in the diner.
"Here you go hun." Said the waitress as she set the coffee on the table.
"…Thank…you." Dee said after a moment's hesitation. His eyes ached in the dim fluorescent lights.
"Sure thing sweetheart, let me know if you need anything." She said before she left to deal with another customer.
Dee took a sip of coffee. Wasn't too bad. Dee stared out the window again before his soul reactivated the ruby and perused the dreams looking for the Flash but whatever connection he had to the hero was now gone.
Too many questions burned through his head. His past use of the ruby had only allowed him to jump into dreams and make a few alterations to turn black sleep into pissing pants nightmares. Was he growing stronger?
It would require more experimenting. So he did. Spreading his influence in all of Mississippi and further still, until he touched and altered hundreds of thousands of minds across the country…no the world.
It was six in the morning in Mississippi when Dee felt satisfied with what he had accomplished. There was still one thing that he had done and was excited to see.
"Excuse me, ma'am." He called the waitress over. Can you turn the TV to channel 52?" The waitress smiled. "Sure thing sweetheart."
The waitress made her way down a few feet from Dee and flipped the channel to 52. "Thank you." Dee sipped from his refreshed coffee.
The camera panned to a middle aged woman who stood in front of a wheelable counter. "Good morning everyone and welcome to cooking with Leota Adebayo. There was applause as she showed off her wares and products.
"I heard its our producers Sheeran's birthday. I think we should bake him a cake." Leota said. "Now to show we care we need to put our sweat and blood into the cake."
Leota grabs her chef's knife. "So remember to slash down the wrist" Leota began to cut down her right forearm. "Not across the wrist." Leota dragged the blade across her wrist. The TV went to static before a blue screen appeared: Please Standby Experiencing Technical Difficulties
Dee laughed and didn't stop even when he got a few questionable looks from the waitress and another patron.
"Are you okay?" asked the waitress coming over, having missed the unfortunate cooking instruction from Leota. "hmm…No, no, just saw something funny."
The waitress turned to the TV to see the blue standby screen. "Well darn it, is there anything I can turn it to?"
"uhh…no ma'am I'm done with the TV anyway." Dee said as he noticed there were now a few other people in the diner besides him. "I think I'll play some games to keep busy."
Around the world the madness returns.
The diner is littered with bodies; The waitress's head has been cut off and dangles from her body. Which carries a large meat cleaver in its right hand. Rivelets of blood dry under a young woman's punctured eyes with a knife and meat skewer protruding from it as she sits lifeless propped up against a bench seat. An old man leans against a stool his hand nailed into the counter and his severed arm lies on the top of the stool. A clothed middle aged woman straddles a naked man both are dead and spattered with entrails from the woman.
In the middle of all this is Dee slurping from a metal cup what looks like a chocolate milkshake. "Finally some new toys."
"Oh fuck!" says Hawkgirl her eyes zoned in on the ruby that hangs in Dee's hand. The flash almost doubles over, his mind already filling with regret: We weren't fast enough. Even John Constantine flinches at the horror that he has entered.
Green Arrow his mind only on taking down Dee, aims his arrow at the monster and fires.
"I don't know why but I'm getting stronger." Dee says as the ruby glows and the diner becomes a magnificent coliseum.
Green Arrow finds himself alone, standing in the sandy arena. He hears the roar of a lion before its large golden body is on top of him. Green Arrow almost screams as he feels large claws tear through vulnerable skin. He grabs the lion's jaws before it can clamp on his head.
John Constantine grunts as his back is pressed against the wooden walls of the Casanova club. "Oh god no." grunts Constantine as he watched the club patrons mill about unaware what was below them.
"John?" said Zatanna concerned trying to hold his shoulder. "Where are we?"
"The worst day of my life." Constantine said before dashing toward the stage.
Zatanna ran after him. "Constantine its only a dream, an illusion."
Zatanna finally grabbed Constantine's shoulder before he could open the basement door. "This is that freaks doing remember?"
Constantine's erratic breathing slowed. "You're right, we need to put on the glasses." He said pulling out his pair and putting them on as Zatanna followed suit. But…
The Casanova club was still there.
A girl's scream rushed through the basement stairs into Constantine. He whirled around, regretful tears streaming down his face. "No." he moaned before the Casanova club exploded into fire.
Constantine opened his eyes to see hundreds of club patrons burned to crisp and in the middle was a red inferno with a little girl trapped in it.
"Con…stantine!" coughed Zatanna in horror. "What is this?"
"My greatest failure." Constantine said.
"Thank you, Constantine." Hisses a harsh voice as yellow eyes peer out of the red fire and grab the little girl.
John bit his tongue drawing the iron taste of blood. God help him if he didn't relive this nightmare every night.
The flames grew closer, the air became thinner, Constantine and Zatanna coughed with each inhalation of smoke.
"This isn't real." Yelled Constantine as he tossed sand of Horus from his waistcoat pocket at the fire only for it to burn to ash instead of destroying the illusion.
"nomed morf su tcetorp" Yelled Zatanna but no shield or bereavement came.
"It can't be." John gasped as he fell back at the encroaching flames.
"You are also mine." A large purple hand with each finger made of sentient snakes reached out of the flame for Constantine and Zatanna.
John Stewart opened his eyes to see he was still in the diner.
"What the hell are you?" demanded Stewart blasting a few green bolts at Dee. Dee blasted his own red bolt to counteract Stewart's attack.
"Interesting you're still here." Suddenly Dee's body began to crack, shift and grow until his body crashed through the diner's roof and loomed over Stewart. "You can call me, Dr. Destiny." Dr. Destiny extended the ruby to the atmosphere and released a ruby pulse that spread across the world.
The madness had returned.
An animal shelter employee was amazed to see his favorite childhood creature, Clifford was real. Without hesitation the employee got on top of the massive creature and rode it into traffic.
A nurse working the geriatric ward laughed as she doused the hall with gasoline. She ignored the confused and scared shouts and pleas of the occupants as she lit a match.
An elderly woman screams awake as she relives giving birth to her first born girl.
A child cheers as he finds his greatest fantasy of flying is now reality and glides ever higher into the air until he meets an airplane.
Back at the diner, Joh searches the area to see the Justice league is gone. "Where are they?" demand Stewart bulleting at Dr. Destiny. Dr. Destiny swats John out of the air. "I sent them into the realm of dreams.
Barry Allen, is the…
Employee of the month. Or so says the plaque that hangs in his cubicle. Barry hunches over his computer and tries to type of his monthly sales report but the keyboard has no letters but four large holes of different shapes: star, circle, square, and triangle.
Barry glared at the keyboard. He had to get out of here…right? There was something he needed to do?
He needed to get his sales report.
Barry groans before he puts his finger into one of the empty sockets of the keyboard. A torrent of paper pour out of the printer.
"Barry!" shouts Kendra entering into his cubicle. "We have to get out of here!" Unlike Barry, Kendra is wearing a red salsa dress with an apron over it.
"B-b-but you said you w-w-wanted my s-sales report." Barry stuttered.
"Sales! Barry we're going up against a man who can make our dreams into a reality with that dream stone." Kendra said.
She was right but for some reason… A ruby glow glazes over his body.
"No can-do miss, got to maintain my employee of the month." Barry said turning back to his keyboard. Kendra was about to grab Barry and knock some truth into him but a trapdoor flung open under her like the old looney tune cartoon.
"Oh…" Kendra said before dropping into the infinite darkness.
Carter laid in a coffin. This was his final death. No rebirths. Just peace.
Carter opened his eyes expecting infinite darkness, the pearly gates, the waters of eternity. Something of the afterlife not to see bright doctor lights burning his coronea.
"Ah, he's still alive." Grinned a woman in goggles and in a white lab coat.
"No!" shouted Carter, anyone but her. Not Mary Shelley the bitch who he confided his secret of rebirth. She had offered a solution to his rebirth problem. But in reality she was only tearing him apart for spare parts for her own experiment.
"Now the Egyptians believed the seat of the soul was the heart, so that'll be the last thing we'll take." Said Mary as she began her first incision. Carter screamed his great strength lost due to the symbols etched into the cuffs that held him to her surgeon table.
John Stewart was doing his best to avoid the ruby bolts that shot from Dr. Destiny's dream stone.
John Stewart blasted a few green bolts at the Dr. who waved his hands conjuring a wall of candy before sending a hail of candy at Stewart.
Stewart created a shield but a piece of candy would break through and pelt him. Damn it, thought Stewart, its almost like a battle of imagination. He looked at his ring, it could do more than fire off energy blasts, it was connected to his will but his imagination too.
Dr. Destiny laughed as the green light was overcome by the colorful assortment of sweets. Dr. Destiny took a deep sniff of the air of madness and pure dreams poured out of the world. He would bend them all to his side.
Before he could consolidate his power. The hail of candy was blown aside as a green robotic giant emerged.
"What!?" demanded Dr. Destiny. The giant bot smashed its fist into Dr. Destiny knocking him back a few feet.
"Why won't you die?" demanded Dr. Destiny.
"Because I don't stop till the job's done!" shouted Stewart before the robot's shoulder pads lifted releasing a dozen green missiles at Dr. destiny. Stewart made a mad dash at Dr. Destiny before he grabbed the ruby from the chain around his neck.
"Mine!" shouted Dr. destiny making a mad scramble for the ruby. John punched Dr. Destiny into the ground.
"Takers keepers." Stewart said before punching Dr. Destiny's oversized nose breaking it.
Stewarts body shuddered as he felt the ruby's powers. It was like a sugar rush. The robot construct disintegrated and Stewart fell to the ground.
The ruby offered up its power and knowledge to Stewart and he knew why he wasn't sucked into the dreams like his comrades were. Like the green lantern ring the ruby ran on imagination and willpower. But unlike the ring the ruby was older and drew its power from a higher source.
His entire left arm burned from holding the ruby and not even utilizing its power. How the hell did Dr. Destiny managed this.
John gritted his teeth but had to finally drop the ruby.
"Please… return… the …ruby to me…" said a pale man with black hair and his eyes, his eyes were the stars of the universe.
"who are you?" demanded john aiming his ring at the figure.
"I am the Lord of Dreams of the endless." Said the figure.
"Lord of dreams is one of the endless, do not engage." Instructed John's ring. John stared at the ring incredulously. "What are the endless."
"We … do… not have time." Groans Dream as he tries to shuffle closer, "That stone was made from the fabric of my being long ago. It was made to manipulate the fabric of dreams of the world I rule."
"Can you undo what happened?" asked Stewart grabbing the ruby. Once again the power of it erupted through his arms.
Dream nodded his head.
"No!" comes the charging body of Dr. Destiny from the forage. "The ruby is mine!" To the surprise of Dream and Stewart the ruby flew toward Dr. Destiny.
On instinct Stewart caught the ring with the green energy. But the pull of Dr. Destiny's bond with the ruby was tearing the green energy.
"Please…" Groaned Dream inching toward the ruby. "It was not made to be used this way. It contains too much of me – of my power. You must return it."
"Never! Its mine, its my precious ruby, I'll destroy him then you and rule this world." Groaned Dr. Destiny.
A thought flew into Stewart's mind. If the ruby could be harnessed by one's willpower than maybe using the ring as a conduit, Stewart could pull a sort of hat trick.
"In brightest day, in blackest night, let no evil escape my sight, let all who worships evil's might, beware my power, Green Lanterns Light!" A firework of green and red encompass the three men's world.
Oliver Queen was not the green arrow but the gladiator, Oliverus the mighty. His bow was replaced by a gladius which he swung to keep the lion and the trident at bay. "You will not best me this day!" Oliverus shouted avoiding the mcdonald containers and food hurled at him.
The other gladiator flung his trident at Oliverus who blocked it with his shield before his gladius was lunged into the maw of the charging lion.
With his right arm entrapped in the lion's jaw the other gladiator hurled his weighted net. Oliverus raised his shield but the net wrapped around him and trapped him against the lion carcass.
The crowd cheered at the gladiators apparent victory.
"Oliverus does not surrender till the end." Shouted Oliverus as he struggled to untangle himself. The other gladiator ignored him and focused on the fat emperor dressed in Green Arrow's suit. Before the emperor could make a decision the entire coliseum shook as a green light punctured the color of the world.
"What madness is this?" demanded Oliverus.
John Constantine was lifted over a black fire by a thousand fishhooks that covered every inch of his flesh. Centipedes the size of a baby's arm traveled through his ear into his brain. But not even his own screams or the demon's laughter could ever cover up the screams of the little girl he failed.
He wished he could close his eyes, but two cracked and yellow fingernails stapled his eyelids open.
He screamed as he watched the girl be torn apart and put back together again and again.
"Mercy!" he begged. His first and only words in hell. Mercy for the girl and if not for her then himself to not bear to see or hear her pain anymore.
A thin silver light pierced hell and spread.
The girl and demon were wiped away by the green light.
"…"
Kendra and falling was not new.
Kendra was pushed off a building in an effort to learn how to fly and reawaken her memories of past lifes.
She was knocked out of the sky by a catapult when she fighting for Camelot back in the day. At least she was unconscious for that one.
So falling and her had a torrid history.
But she had never fallen for hours before.
Its time dilation to rationalize but it didn't change the fact that it was now going on what feels like days. The worst part of this was the darkness. She couldn't even see her own hands much less have a sense of where it was.
Suddenly the darkness was gone replaced by a green light.
Barry Allen was now covered in paper reports. His chair and his desk were now made up of paper reports, but he continued to punch his keyboard printing more and more paper.
"I have to make employee of the month again. Need that bonus to take Iris and me our destination wedding." He says.
Golden electricity sparks over his eyes. Lucidity returns.
I'm Barry Allen the Flash not some office worker.
But a ruby flash across his face and killed the lucidity.
"More paper reports." Barry said.
As he looked at the screen, he was surprised to see it spark green.
"What is that?" Barry asked.
Dr. Destiny opened his eyes to see the Justice League standing over him. Green Arrow had his arrow pointed at the creep.
"Its over Dr. Destiny." Green Arrow said using his harsh voice.
Most of the league was hoping he wouldn't surrender so they can show him how much they appreciated his dream meandering.
"You are quite right it is over." Said a booming voice to the entire group. They then realized they were not standing on the remains of the diner but of the palm of Dream.
"Who is that?" Constantine asked, moving to pinch himself that he was not still in that nightmare.
"That's Dream of the endless." Said Stewart bewildered.
"Yes, and I must say that was clever plan, destroying the ruby so the power would return to me." Dream praised Stewart.
Stewart smile halfheartedly. In truth that was not his intention at all. He was trying to pull his team out of the dreams, that Dr. Destiny had thrown them in, and that would turn the tide of power to the good guys.
"Of the…endless." Muttered Zatarra.
"Yes." Said Dream before he focused on Dr. Destiny "Now, time for reparations."
Dr. Destiny prostrated himself, "please don't kill me."
"Kill you?" questioned Dream, who shook his head, "I would never do that, I think I rather give you a gift…"
"A gift!" shouted Kendra in pure rage. "This monster almost destroyed the world and might have tried to destroy you and you're gonna reward him."
"The ruby was not meant for human hands. " explained Dream, "the poor man's mind must have been deteriorated by its continual use."
In a blink of an eye they were all standing within the diner. Dream was no longer the size of a universe had his hand on Dr. Destiny's shoulder. "His gift, will be the gift of eternal waking."
John Dee awoke screaming, he opened his eyes to see he was back in his bedroom in his mother's house.
"John?" said a weak voice before his door was moved ajar. "What's wrong dear?" The elderly lady looked to be in her nineties and her back was curved like the hunchback of Notre Dame forcing her bosom to touch her knees.
John shakily wiped the sweat from his brow. "It was a horrible nightmare, the – the ruby you gave me was owned by another who called himself Dream." John pulled his legs out of bed. His feet touched the cold wood floor.
"The ruby I… I – I inherited when you…" John turned his eyes to his wrinkled monster of a mother. "You're dead."
His mother open mouth grinned letting hundreds of tiny black spiders falling out. "I am dear, I am dead." She reached for him and John fell back in fear.
John Dee awoke in a small cot in his cell at the insane asylum Arkham. It was here the foolish guards had told him his mother died and proceeded to hand him the ruby as if it was safe.
John Dee rose from his cot. Was it all a dream? His mother's death, the ruby, the justice league, the lord of dreams himself.
John barely put his foot on the cold cement before it erupted with the dead he made.
"John!" cried the waitress her head hanging to her neck by a thread of muscle and skin. "Come back and play." They were all there every person he had killed.
"No!" John screamed.
To the Justice League John Dee was sleeping peacefully among the rubble of the diner. That was the gift Dream had given Dee nightmare everlasting…eternal waking.
"What about you?" asked Zatanna eyeing Dream. "We just let you go?"
"I don't think there's much you could do to stop me from leaving. " Dream said matter of factly. He began to walk away but stopped. "I will offer this, if ever you need the help of a dream, just say my name: Morpheus." At the mention of his name the endless disappeared.
"That was…horrible." Groaned Hawkman rubbing his eyes.
"We…should" John stewart yawned.
"That bastard must have…" tittered Constantine before he fell over asleep.
Morpheus had given the league a gift to, actually the whole world who had suffered under Dr. Destiny's reign over the past 24 hours. He had gifted the world peaceful sleep.
John Constantine for the first time in a decade does not dream of any horrors he had inflicted. Zatanna dreams of having a picnic with her late father under a tree on a hill. Barry Allen is not haunted by his future actions and his past failures, but a slow dance with Iris West. Green Arrow, Hawkman, and John Stewart do not dream, just resting in the blackness. Hawkgirl dreams of open fields, wild horses, and clear skies.
Patients who were hurt in the madness all sleep like angels, needing no morphine. They breathe in and out, in and out, in unbroken and quiet rhythm.