Chapter 28

"Let me tell you a story"

Before their eyes, a large mushroom sprouted beneath Mad Jim Jaspers, giving the disturbing man an elevated seat above them. From out of nowhere, he pulled out a hookah which he began puffing on, even as his red hat transformed into a fez. Leaning back, Jaspers took a large inhale from the pipe in his hand, and began to speak.

"Once upon a time, there was a man, who asked, why should superheroes have privilege? Why should they hide behind masks while they run around, upsetting our tidy little society that we work so hard for? Why should they be strong, and we be weak? They're the freaks, not us! Aha, I suppose you've heard a version of this story before, but I assure you..." he grinned maliciously "as always, you Americans missed the point entirerly"

Mad Jaspers exhaled a large cloud of smoke, and suddenly, the white room began to change, the walls darkening away into nothing. Instead, images began to appear across the surfaces, images of a city. London, Jen realized. It was London. But it wasn't the London she knew. It seemed...darker somehow. The colors even looked muted and dirty. A man was speaking to an angry crowd, in a city park decorated with placards and signs full of ugly words, even harsher than what she had seen during the SRA fiasco.

It was Jim Jaspers. One of them anyway, she wasn't sure which.

"You see, the people, they were angry, or bored, or frustrated, as people are wont to be, and eagerly listened to anyone who'd tell them that their unhappiness was someone elses fault. Why not blame the heroes, who made them feel small and impotent and unsatisfied with their own boring lives? So this man, he rose to power just by promising that all those nasty masked people would go away. But he had a secret."

Another puff of smoke and the images changed again, showing Jaspers sitting alone in his office, staring at a glass of white wine, which switched from red, to white, to red... and then to a human skull.

"He was a mutant. With a dangerously powerful mutant brain, probably one of the strongest there'd ever been. And since he was so powerful, why shouldn't he be in charge? Why shouldn't he rule? Why shouldn't the world be his playground? But then there were the heroes, those pesky heroes. They'd always had a tendency to beat the odds at inconvenient times. They had to go first, just to make sure no one could ruin his fun. So he made a machine."

The images changed again, revealing a humanoid...something, a mix of machinery and something else, something black she couldn't recognize, like tar, with one massive glowing eye at the side of his hed and one arm ending in a large gun, wandering across a field of corpses dressed in the tattered remains of colorful costumes. "The Fury, that wonderful Fury that did it's job so well. Soon, there was no one left to stand in the mans way, and the world became a Wonderland, a place where anything could happen!" The city began to twist and distort, buildings warping themselves, trees and cars coming alive, even the people became grotesque parodies of fairy tale characters, screaming in agony as their bodies changed.

Jen began to feel sick.

"And then, just like that, it was all over." The screens went black again, the maddened world dissolving into nothingness, leaving only Jaspers himself in the void.

Mad Jaspers floated back down from the large mushroom, dismissing the hookah with a wave "And wouldn't you know it, that little man who nobody understood...was me!" He grinned at Sir Jaspers, who looked like he was about to faint. "And, in a way, you."

Steve stepped forward "So, you're the Jim Jaspers from some other universe? One that doesn't exist anymore?"

"Prepostorous!" Sir Jaspers roared "I don't know who or what this charlatan is, but he's most certainly not me! He's a bloody madman! Not to mention I know for a fact that I'm NOT a mutant, I've had myself genetically screened! I'm a politician, that's not something you can leave for your enemies to dig up on you!"

Mad Jaspers grin seemed to grow even wider "Oh, but you are. Or rather, you were. But, you don't need all the details. What you DO need to know is that you, my dear dull twin, is my ticket back to the real world!"

Sir Jaspers paled "W-what? What are you babbling about?"

Mad Jim pointed at Sleepwalker as he began to pace around the void "Old Lizardface over there told you about where you are, right? You were pulled into the Mindscape because green girl's boyfriend were dreaming about you, giving "very dangerous forces" an opportunity to tap into his dream and draw you here. And guess who said force was! You folks get three guesses and the first two don't count!" A neon sign reading "This Guy" popped up over Mad Jim's head.

"..and because Sir Jaspers is the you of our reality, you can escape the Mindscape through him!" Steve said, a look of horror on his face.

Mad Jim glared at him "Yes, I was getting to that, Mr Drama-Wrecker! I bet you yell out spoilers during movies too! But yeah, as the Star-Spangled Bungler just said, by tapping into the muties unconscious powers, I can get back to the real world by taking over YOUR body, old boy!"

"I-I won't just let you-"

"Aww, look, he thinks he's got a choice" Mad Jim said, patting his double condescendingly on his head "None of you can stop me, this is MY REALM, I control this place, just as I will control Earth once I get out of here!"

"You're not going anywhere, I'm a guardian of this realm, and-" Sleepwalker began, but was cut off with a bored yawn and a wave of the hand from Mad Jim, causing the ground to rise up and envelop him from the neck up.

"Oh, just stop, you're embarassing yourself. I killed my worlds heroes, ALL of them! What do you think you three can do to stop me?"

"The same thing we've always done to deluded madmen who think they should be gods." And with one step, Steve moved across the room with impossible speed, and laid Mad Jim flat on the ground with a single punch. Blinking, Mad Jim rose a shaking hand to his face, his eyes widening as he saw the blood on his fingers.

"You-you hit me! That's impossible!"

"No, nothing is impossible here. As you said yourself, this is a dream." Steve grabbed for the downed man, but in a flash of motion, Mad Jim disappeared, reappearing a few yards away, wiping the blood from his face.

"NO! It's impossible! You can't have any power here, only I can, because-"

"Because you're not a reality warper at all, are you? Atleast not like the one you claim to be. I don't know if your story is true or not, but I'm guessing even if it was, you're not actually Mad Jim Jaspers." Steve said, arms crossed as he stared at the ranting man. Jen looked over, and just for a moment, it seemed like Mad Jim was replaced by something else, like his body was just an illusion someone else was wearing, and Steve's words were making it fail. She turned to Sleepwalker.

"Hey, you're the dream warrior, is Steve right? Is this just some other thing pretending to be that Evil Jaspers guy?"

Blinking slowly, Sleepwalkers eyes began to glow with power "I wouldn't have thought so, the forces I felt seemed utterly alien to the Mindscape when I sought you out, but now... there's something else beginning to leak through. Something familiar. But the only being with a power comperable to Jaspers, even on the dreamplane, would be-" His eyes widened, and a pair of energy beams shot out from his eyes, darting towards Mad Jim, striking him in a blinding flash of light. His body began to contort and change, the bright colorful clothing morphing into a green tunic and a long, ragged cape, while his skin grew deathly white and his hair pitch black.

The man...the thing that had been pretending to be Mad Jim Jaspers stood before them in his true form, his gaunt, emaciated body radiating fear, his black eyes staring at them hatefully. Jen shivered.

"Who the hell is this creep?"

Sleepwalker scowled. "Men call him Nightmare. The Sleepwalkers call him our eternal enemy."

"You're too kind, Sleepwalker" Nightmare said in a voice that sounded like ashes. "I despise you and your meddlesome breed just as much. I should have destroyed you all when I had the chance."

"You would have, had you the ability to, demon!" Sleepwalker said, struggling against his prison "Begone from the Mindscape and back to your own realm, you know you have no authority here!"

"Are you following any of this?" Jen whispered to Steve "I'm totally lost."

"Nightmare is a fear demon of some sort" Steve said with a serious look on his face "I've fought him before, he can attack people through their dreams, which is why he had all this power here despite supposedly being a reality warper."

"You're exactly right, captain" Nightmare turned away from Sleepwalker and began stalking over towards them "I should have guessed that if anyone could guess the truth about my disguise, it would be you, you've always been annoyingly perceptive about these things. Just one more reason for why I intended to destroy your spirit here before I escaped. Mad Jim Jaspers had that right, you heroes have a frustrating tendency to get in the way!"

Reaching out, Jen grabbed Nightmare by his ratty tunic and pulled him closer "Listen up, you half-assed Tim Burton ripoff, either explain yourself now, or you're getting a punch somewhere a lot more painful than where Steve hit you, got it?!"

"Get your damn hands off me, mortal!" Nightmare roared, slapping her hand away with surprising force, but Jen simply grabbed his arm again and wrenched it around his back.

"That's not going to work anymore, and if Steve can outdream you or whatever, you can bet your ass I can too, now spill it!"

Nightmare struggled against her grasp, but with his illusion broken, Jen's will was giving her enough mental power to fight against even him, and his grip on the Mindscape was beginning to fail. He gritted his teeth in frustration. "Curse all of it... very well, you already know my plan, I was telling the truth when I said I planned to use your lovers power to escape into reality, by posing as Mad Jim Jaspers. He would subconsciously transfer my powers from the sleeping realm to the real world, allowing me free reign to use them there."

"But... why would you need to do any of this at all?"

Nightmare glared at her "Because Ginnungagap is afraid of him. That put part of him in my realm, no matter how small it was. It gave me the opportunity to do this!"

Steve nodded "Alright, that explains why Sir Jaspers is here, but why drag us into it? There wouldn't have been anyone to foil you if you hadn't."

"Again, fear. The man is a cauldron of anxieties." He nodded to Jen "You, he fears losing. He fears you'll grow to hate him if you knew his secrets. It's positively sickening." He turned to Steve "You, he fears letting down, he fears you'd see him as a villain for everything he's done. If I had destroyed you in here, it would have secured my passage out!"

Jen tried processing his words, but it still didn't make any sense to her, and she released the demon, letting him back away. "No, that... that can't be the only reason. You're hiding something. Why would Johan be afraid of this Mad Jim Jaspers? Hell, how would he even know he existed, much less know enough to be this terrified of him?"

But Nightmare only grinned, and began to dissolve into green mist, even as he left a few parting words. "That's the thing about dreams... you always wake up just when things get their worst."

And then he was gone.

The black void began to fade away, returning to the same white room they had woken up in, the floor melting away to release Sleepwalker as well. Sir Jaspers looked around, and gave a half-hysterical laugh. "I'm bloody happy this is a dream, because I really don't want to have to remember any of this when I wake up tomorrow."

"Speaking of which, why are we still here? Nightmare is gone, the dream should be over." Steve said, walking over to help Jaspers to his feet. Jen remained silent, still thinking over the questions Nightmare had left her with. Was the story about Mad Jim Jaspers real? And if so, why did Johan know about it? More importantly, why did he fear him so much? And what were those secrets he was so afraid of her finding out about?

Her thoughts were interupted by Sleepwalkers voice. "You forget, Captain Rogers, this isn't YOUR dream. Until he wakes up, you'll be in it, even with Nightmare gone."

Jen thought for a moment. "I think I have an idea." She looked up at the ceiling.

"And then Ginnungagap woke up."

.....

Guh?

Okay, that's the last night I spend crashing on a couch in the X-Mansion, I need to get a more permanent place to live, you get the weirdest dreams sleeping like this.

The mansion is still silent as I walk out the front door and across the lawn, over to where Ares axe is still stuck in the yard. I should really try and find someone who can pull that out, but I wouldnt even know where to start. I stretch and yawn as I watch the sun begin to rise, the dream already mostly faded from my mind. What was it again? Something about Jen, I think? And some guy with really pale skin. Eh, probably not important.