“So you are a nightmare from this realm of dreams, where the dreams we have at night manifest into a living form whether they be good or bad,” Drew repeated back to Vee. Melissa could tell just by the fact he was currently massaging the bridge of his nose that he was unsure how to take everything. “The barriers between our realms are breaking, which is what allowed you to get here and that puts our world in danger somehow. Is that right?”

“Well, you did forget one teeny thing,” Vee said from her place in Dragon’s arms. The quiet girl wasn’t entirely sure when the doll had ended up there. It didn’t help that it was looking at her with non-existent eyes, mouth-head wide in what she could only assume was the doll’s version of a smile. “That teeny thing being that I also got to meet my dreamer! The one responsible for making me.”

“I actually do remember having a dream with a doll similar to you in it,” Dragon said. She looked to Lucy as she continued to speak. “Remember that magical girl anime my brother showed us? The really dark one?”

“Oh, the one that had the main character’s mentor’s head get bitten clean off?” Lucy asked. Dragon gave a nod, and Lucy stood up from her seat and pumped a fist into the air in joy at being right. After letting the pose hang for a moment, she sat back down and rested her head on her right knuckle, squishing her cheek in the process. “Yeah, I remember it. Kind of skyrocketed into my top five and binge watched it after. What about it?”

“Had a nightmare after watching that episode. Involved a doll like Vee here,” Dragon explained. She turned Vee around and held her out. “Kind of hard to remember the details. I think I was more interested in the dragon from the dream. They had breasts. I was confused.”

Vee let out a hiss at the mention of the dragon, but the hiss disappeared as its dreamer hugged it against her chest. Melissa chuckled, both at the surprisingly warm smile Dragon was having towards the literal embodiment of her worst dreams and the blush she had on. She knew the only reason Dragon had gotten herself at least one part or a fur suit was due to their shut-in nature. The only thing that could get the girl out of her room was one of her friends, her brother, her adoptive parents, or food.

“Wait, so we are just assuming that we aren’t being played for fools here,” Drew said, looking at each of his friends. “I mean, clearly this doll here must be some highly advanced robot or something.”

“AI isn’t that advanced yet, Drew,” Melissa explained to him. She couldn’t exactly blame him for being skeptical, for it certainly didn’t feel real. “Even if it was, I felt no wires or metal in Vee’s body. Still, if you want to check it certainly would be good.”

Vee, feeling very uncomfortable with Melissa’s idea, waved her arms in front of her frantically. “Uh, there is no need to check. I can tell you that my body is perfectly plush, stuffed with fluff, or howeve–“

Vee was interrupted as Lucy plucked the doll unwillingly from Dragon's arma and held them firmly. She felt around the doll for any signs of wires before prying their head-mouth open. Facing Vee towards Drew, Melissa couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for how they were treating a creature that she was pretty confident was alive. One look at Dragon told her that they were feeling very similar.

None of that stopped Drew from reaching first his fingers, and then the rest of his arm, into Vee’s mouth. Then to the surprise of everyone including himself, his lower arm went in. The doll, whose body was smaller than a house cat, had just taken more of his body inside themselves then should humanly be possible. Everyone sat there stunned, the final nail in the coffin being hammered in as one very clear fact came to a head.

Vee was indeed as inhuman as it claimed to be.

“Get your icky skin out of my mouth,” Vee requested, her voice far angrier than any of the humans had heard so far. Drew did as was told, Melissa able to see the look of shock and confusion that took over his entire face. “Was any of that really necessary?”

“Y-yeah! That was really rude,” Dragon said, snatching Vee with ease from Lucy’s grip and cuddling them against her once again. “Nightmare or not, don’t treat people like that.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Drew whispered. Melissa looked to him curiously, her friend turning to her. “No stuffing, no metal. All that was inside its body was empty space. Like I had reached into nothing.”

Melissa’s eyebrows raised. “Really?”

She turned back to Vee as Drew nodded, finding herself more and more intrigued. Her mind likened what she heard to the bottomless inventory some video game characters had, though she felt in her gut that anything she would try to store in Vee would just vanish. It made no sense, and given the nature of the doll that made sense. Dreams and nightmares, even when more sane, didn’t follow the logic of reality. If Vee came from a realm of existence where the laws of science were so different it might be considered magic, then having a bottomless pit for insides made sense.

It also made her worried, for despite Vee now being in her reality they still seemed to be playing by the laws of its own.

“Let's get back to the far more important matter at hand now that we’ve confirmed Vee is what it says it is,” Melissa said, narrowing her eyes at the doll. Everything around them felt silent as she focused all her attention on the nightmare right before her. “This invasion, you said, would either leave us humans, or dreamers as you call us, enslaved or extinct.”

For a minute and a half, Vee was quiet. They weren’t avoiding the question, but rather trying to find the right way to answer it. When the doll didn’t give an immediate answer, Lucy had moved to shout, but Melissa motioned for them to wait, which led to the impatient eye twitch the french girl now had. After a time, something between a groan and sigh came out from Vee.

“I came here to try and stop it, and as the ones about to be invaded you deserve to know who is responsible,” Vee replied. The doll’s voice was more downcast than Melissa had heard in the short time she had known them, and couldn’t help but find the sadness sounding rather wrong for them. “The one who plans to invade is the Night Terror known as Bael.”

“A… night terror?”All four of the humans said collectively, a look of dread on their faces.

“The most powerful of us nightmares,” Vee explained. “They’re capable of feasting on dreamers even during the day, for their power isn’t sapped by the rising sun. They are our equivalent to rulers, with us nightmares deeply loyal to them. They’re strong, smart, powerful, and most of us would follow their command without question.”

There was a small hint of guilt in those last few words, the doll contemplating her choices far too late to change them. She wondered for a moment what it would feel like to cry like dreamers did, for she didn’t have eyes to weep. For the first time, she realized that she had put herself in the danger of a fate all nightmares worried about. A fate that not just nightmares, but dreams and dreamers were just as familiar with.

Death.

“Bael was someone I considered a friend for a long time,” Vee said, forcing itself to continue speaking. “They were just a normal nightmare then but… they became more powerful. They enjoyed the power they got when they became a night terror, and I was happy for them. Then, when the barrier first showed signs of cracking, something changed in them. A long held desire that I didn’t realize they had: to have the dreamers under their heels. At first, I was with them, because making Bael happy made me happy. Then, they told me their plan.”

There was a change in Vee’s voice as it continued to speak, as if afraid. Melissa couldn’t help but wonder if it was actually fear, for it seemed strange for a creature made of nightmares to feel a concept like that. The doll looked up to Dragon as they continued their explanation.

“While it is true that Bael wanted enslavement, their plan to do so involved using their powers to blot out the sun and make night eternal. That way, we nightmares could feed forever and ever, without ever needing to stop. The dark of night gives us our power, after all. However, they had completely forgotten something that all nightmares learn. If you feed on a dreamer’s fear and trauma too much, they get depressed. If they get too depressed–”

Vee didn’t continue, and none around the doll could finish the sentence they had started. Lucy looked away, Melissa gritting her teeth and clenching her seat with both hands. Dragon’s grip on the doll tightened, and Drew gained a downtrodden looked. All at the table, save for Drew, had more than enough experience with depression and trauma to know what the doll was getting at, and the man was smart enough to figure out where Vee was heading. When none would finish what it was trying to stay, Vee continued on.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“There are more nightmares than there are dreamers; you would be easily overwhelmed if the invasion took place,” Vee explained, her words doing nothing but further souring the mood at the table. “If that happens, all dreamers will slowly die until none are left, and we nightmares and dreams are connected to those who dream us,” They looked up to Dragon once again. “If Maria were to die, every nightmare and dream attached to her would fade from existence. In other words…”

“Bael is planning the mass extinction of not just humanity but his own as well,” Lucy said, somehow finding the ability to speak despite everything that had been loaded on her. “Dear god.”

“Have you not tried explaining it to them?” Drew asked.

“I did, but he refused to listen. When I pushed him too much, he started asking me if I was really his friend,” Vee answered, her mouth-head drooping and hands going to cover her non-existent eyes. “I think that was when I realized he didn’t actually see me as a friend. No, he had taken advantage of me in order to become as powerful as he was. I won’t allow someone like that to damage nightmare-kind anymore! That is why I need your help to stop us.”

“Our help?” Dragon asked. “You said there were far more nightmares than humans. What could we do against an invasion force?”

Vee jumped out of her hands and onto the table, landing head first but not caring at all. The doll picked itself up and reached into its pocket, pulling out the pin it had stolen from the night terror. Placing it on the table, Vee waited for one of the humans to ask about it, seeing the clear intrigue (or in Drew’s case, confusion) that was on their faces. When the doll glanced at Lucy, Melissa reached her hand out and picked up the pin in curiosity.

“So, this is some sort of magical nightmare thingy I assume?” Melissa asked, pointing to the pin with her free hand.

Vee, as well as the trans girl’s friends, all looked to it, noticing the faint glow that the pin was giving off. Melissa didn’t pay any attention to it, her eyes tunnel visioned on Vee waiting for an answer. Instead of an answer, the doll started running towards her for a reason she wasn’t quite sure of.

“Wait!” Vee exclaimed. “You weren’t supposed to pick it up ye–”

Suddenly, Vee stopped. It wasn’t just her voice but her movements, locked in mid-air like it was a pop up in a picture book. Melissa looked at them in confusion, eyes still not looking at the shining pin in her left hand. She waved her hands across the dolls head-mouth to get some reaction, but it did nothing. Melissa blinked once, twice, and then a third time as she tried to figure out what was going on.

“Vee? You in there?” Melissa asked. When she got no response she looked to Lucy, face stuck in a shock. “Lucy, I think I broke the doll… Lucy?”

It was then the trans girl realized something was very, very off. As if to confirm, she looked out the window to the beachside and the lake. She could see a tree bending forward, as if a powerful gust of wind kept it from moving back. She saw a man frozen in place atop a bike, not moving. Neither of his feet were on the ground too, making Melissa wonder how he had managed to stop himself from falling over.

It was at that moment that Melissa realized it wasn’t incredible balance that kept the man up, but rather motion. The lack of motion, to be specific. She turned to each of her friends, noting that they two looked as if they were stuck in time. Then she turned to Vee just to confirm they were also suffering from the same thing. She looked behind her, noticing an employee behind the cash register taking a man's order, and yet they remained completely silent. It was at this moment she finally looked back to the pin, eyes widening.

“Did… did the pin just freeze time or something?”

“To you, dreamer, I give this power.”

The sudden addition of not just one but a conglomeration of different voices caused Melissa to stand up and step back in shock, the chair noiseless being shoved across the floor behind her in the process. She looked all around the cafe to try and see who or what had spoken to her, only to be greeted by nothing but time-frozen café-goers and employees. She started to get a little scared, but forced her fear inside of her and faked a brave face.

“Who the hell is there? Show yourself!” She commanded, but when the voice next spoke it completely ignored her.

“To you who know the pains of unacceptance, to you who is starved for attention, I give the power to make your dreams reality. Say the pledge of the Magral Knights so you may soothe and help those abandoned by cruel reality, and that power is yours.”

“Magral Knights? Pledge? What the fuck are you talking about?” Melissa asked, yet the voice gave her no direct answer.

With no idea where it came from, a phrase entered her head. She wasn’t sure where she had heard it from, or if she even knew it before that point, but it was there. Her mouth moved to speak on its own, only to hang open when the time came to voice whatever it was she had tried to say. For some reason, Melissa knew what it was she needed to say, even though she didn’t know why. So, breathing in deep through her nostrils, she closed her eyes and spoke.

“I… I dream the dreamers dream,” She spoke, no confidence in herself or the words. She had no idea what she was doing, but she couldn’t get herself to stop speaking. “Of a world of endless possibilities, of a world of endless realities to shape into… into my own.”

“–t.”

Vee tripped on air and fell forward onto the table while Dragon, Drew, and Lucy were startled as they looked from where Melissa had been to where she currently was. As for Melissa herself, she found the first thing to hit her was the sound of soft piano over the café speakers and the order of the man behind her at the cash register. She looked down at the pin, the glow having faded from it. She briefly tried to figure out what it was she had just gone through, but trying to think made her head hurt.

“Melissa, what did you just do?”

Melissa finally looked at Lucy, who was staring at her with an open jaw. The french girl pointed to Melissa’s seat, and then to the trans girl herself, and then back to the seat. The look of shock left her confused for a moment until she realized exactly what it was that had happened: time had indeed stopped. While she had simply gotten up from her chair to herself, to those around her it seemed as if she had blipped a small distance away.

“The pin, it’s magic somehow,” She explained to her friends. “I-It stopped time for a moment, and then this strange choir of voices spoke to me.”

“Wait, stopped time? Voices?” Drew asked, getting a nod from his friends. He rubbed his forehead, Melissa knowing that this was likely giving the man far more of a headache then it was anyone else there. “The hell have we gotten ourselves into?”

“You weren’t supposed to pick it up!” Vee screamed at Melissa, the girl letting out a squeak and flinching at the doll’s anger. “The first one was meant to be for my dreamer! Maria was supposed to be our first Magral Knight! I was gonna find one for you later!”

Dragon blinked uncomfortably in her seat. “Magral Knight?”

“Dreamers with the ability to bend the very nature of dreams to their will. If I remember correctly, they were once called Magical Reality Knights but they shortened it for convenience,” Vee said, spinning around to face Dragon. “The power the dreams grant them allows the dreamers to battle nightmares and dreams like myself safely. When Meany picked it up, it no doubt bonded itself to her and made her into one.”

“I don’t feel any different,” Melissa replied, tapping a finger against her cheek as she eyed the pin. “Though the voices did mention Magral Knights. Told me to take some sort of pledge that kind of just… popped into my head out of nowhere.”

“Oh, so you took some secret knightley pledge?” Lucy asked mischievously. Despite her mind telling her not to, Melissa gave her friend a nod. It made the french girl grow a villainous smirk. “I thought you wanted to be the princess, not the knight.”

“How was I supposed to know it was magical? It looked like any other ordinary pin!” Melissa replied defensively. She moved her chair just a little bit away from Lucy as she sat back down. Looking away sheepishly, she rubbed the back of her head. “Though, I guess I should have expected it to be something weird, considering who I got it from.”

Vee looked at her, feeling more than a little offended at Melissa’s wording. Melissa chose to ignore it, instead focusing her mind on the fact that she had no idea what she had just gotten herself into. The day had proven to be a true conundrum to forever be above all other conundrums. She had just agreed to become something she had no true knowledge of, with apparent powers like she was some shoujo protagonist from anime Cameron would likely watch.

Her eyes widened as that last train of thought hit her, a barely noticeable smile on her face. She felt the good kind of fluttering in her chest, the feeling of gender euphoria that single thought had given her canceling out the eternal questioning. Yes, she was just like a shoujo protagonist now if what Vee was telling her was all true. Some sort of magical knight with the power of dreams at her beck and call…

… a magical girl.

“Hearing all of that, I’m glad Melissa took it and not me,” Dragon said, not noticing the giddiness in said friend’s expression as they practically bounced up and down on her seat in excitement. While Vee turned to look at Dragon with shock, Lucy and Drew looked at Melissa with concern on their faces. “I would be useless in a fight. You brought me in, the world might as well have already been invaded.”

“You don’t even know that yet!” Vee stated. “Besides, I picked you not out of bias but because I knew you are stronger than you think you are. I’ve felt that way since you brought m–”

Melissa slammed her palms hard against the table, the sound scaring the doll and causing Dragon to jolt her head up at her friend in surprise. Her eyes went wide in fear as she saw the confident smirk that was on her friend's face, something that both Lucy and Drew were similarly worried by. They had only seen Melissa smile like that a few times, and when it showed up it could only mean some really crazy idea had ended up in her mind. Judging by the fact the trans girl’s eyes were currently filled with confidence and fire, and that said eyes were glued on Vee, it was no doubt worse than usual.

“Well, if you are gonna try to save the human race you can sign me the fuck up!” Melissa said, pointing at herself with confidence. “Magral Knight and – as I hereby dub myself – Magical Girl Melissa Rogers at your service!”

While Drew starred in stunned disbelief, Lucy and Dragon’s faces drained of all color and found their faces locked in horror. They had seen plenty of crazy things come out of her mouth when she was truly in a good mood, but this was something else. It was like some mad deity had placed an absurd idea into her head. With all that in mind, there was only one word that could appropriately respond to what they had just heard their friend spread.

“What?!”