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Warren Hartgrave

"Look for the details..."

0 · 1,073 views · located in New Cosmopolitian City

a character in “Heroes and Villains: A New Threat”, as played by LSunday

Description

Name: Warren Hartgrave
Known Aliases: Joshua Hendrix, Carson Beckett, Vince Drummer, Graham Anderson, Harry Lewis, Kyle Fisher, Thomas Young, Frank Wright, Brandon Francis
Public Name: The Dreammaster
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Appearance:Image
Hero/Villain Outfit: None- He uses his powers to alter how people see him, so no one can recognize him.
Villain or Hero: Whichever is more fun at the moment. (Neutral)
Power 1: His main power is to generate a dream world around his target. He has full control over this world, and while 'instant' deaths will not cause any lasting effects on the real world, slow deaths can cause minor brain damage and, occasionally, put a character in a coma. When someone is killed instantly, they will wake up from the dream with minor disorientation. He can only maintain one dream at a time, and the more people he places in the dream, the more he has to concentrate. He cannot function in everyday life if he is maintaining a dream of over two people, as the effort it takes the maintain the dream makes it so he cannot devote any attention to the real world. If he tries to place too many people in a dream, his brain won't even be able to concentrate on making him breathe and he will pass out and the dream will end.
Power 2: Memory theft- as a variation on the dream power, he can use the memories of a person to construct a dream that includes information Warren would not already know. If he wishes to keep any of this information once the dream ends, however, he must enter the dream himself and learn or read about it.
Power 3: Warren can alter the way people perceive objects in the real world, but he can only make minor changes. The shape, weight, and dimensions will stay the same, but things like lettering, colors, and similar pieces can be altered. He uses this to rearrange his facial features and hair color/style so that he cannot be recognized, and very few people have actually seen his born face. He usually changes his face day-to-day, and can be hard to recognize each morning to those who do not know him well.
Lair/home: A small apartment in the city.
Affiliates: His landlord, Jason Thorne, is under his thumb due to his sleepwalking disorder. Otherwise, he keeps to himself.

Personality

Warren keeps to himself. He will use his powers for personal gain, but rarely causes any harm or even does any 'major' events. He doesn't have a job, instead getting food by placing the cashiers at stores in minor dreams so they perceive him paying and give it to him for free. He usually spends his time at home in self-induced dreams which he plays like video games. Sometimes, when he is bored, he'll stay up at night and alter his neighbor's dreams. He rarely goes out of his apartment, but once the NCCPD asked for superhero help, he started paying attention to what was happening in the city and will often interfere in the heroes' and villains' plans. Sometimes, he'll toss other super-powered people into dreams together and pit them against one another. However, he does have a moral system and will never bring real harm to a person if he can hep it.

Equipment

When Warren is using his powers, he operates under the following limitations:

1 person: Can operate normally, no extreme activity. Absolute control of dream.
2 people: Can operate, but will seem distracted. Absolute control of dream.
3-6 people: Still aware of surroundings, but cannot move. Still capable of speech. Absolute control of dream.
6-10 people: Can hear surroundings, but cannot speak or see. Can't manipulate large inanimate objects (buildings, etc.)
10-13 people: Completely unaware of surroundings. Can't manipulate anything he couldn't carry in real life.
13+:Unable to maintain lungs, will pass out after the maximum amount of time he can hold his breath. (1.5 minutes) Dream will falter, and the dreamees will have minor control over the reality.

History

Warren ran away from home when he was 15, and has since used his dream abilities to freeload off of the people around him. He had trouble with people around him learning of his deceptions, and is known to a few police departments, but he has become adept at staying off the record. For a while, he had to move around every few weeks, until he found a landlord, Jason Thorne, who sleepwalks. Ever since then, he has been able to use his powers to make Thorne do anything he wants. Ever since then, he has been living in the same building, using Thorne to get food and general products.

He still does practice dreams when he can- he will often place 13 people in a dream as practice to try to expands the size of a dream he can create. This method is how honed his abilities from when he originally discovered his powers, when he could only place two people in a dream at a time, and even then only with cosiderable effort.

So begins...

Warren Hartgrave's Story

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren stared down at the streets below him. He knew he shouldn't be up here, but it didn't matter. The guard was in his own dream state downstairs. Warren stepped up to the edge and looked down the 96 floors to the street below. He smiled and wondered why he'd never done this before-then he jumped.

The wind rushed through his hair as he fell, and he let out a shout of excitement as he did a backflip. He spread himself flat-then he hit the street.

Warren woke up on his couch, bolting up straight and panting for a second before returning to a lying position. He sighed. "Boring."

Warren lay there for a few minutes before he made up his mind-he was going out. Moving to the mirror, he thought about who he should be today. Looking at his face, he watched as his features seemed to rearrange. He decided to go with a vaguely Asian look, and tinted his skin appropriately. Then he turned and walked out the door, altering his clothes to a business suit.

He felt like a horror film today, and it was time to cast the roles.

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#, as written by LSunday
The warehouse district-Warren's favorite late-night dream setting. Warren knew he probably shouldn't be out this late on his own-he'd been 'mugged' his fair share of times. And he was sure the people who had stolen the five million dollars, bag of diamonds, and even that one group who took his clothes, all wondered what had happened to them when they left and found they had a handful of crumpled paper.

Warren heard an explosion off to his right, probably one of the common super-powered fights the city was rife with, and turned left. He didn't feel like risking an encounter with any other supers tonight. Warren knew there was a group that liked to play high-stakes poker in one of the old shipping houses who would suit his needs nicely.

Warren pulled open the back door and entered to the sound of voices. He poked his head around the corner and saw several of them sitting at a round table, beers and all. Warren counted them-seven, plus the two security guards at the front entrance. Nine. He could handle that. Now he just needed a good vantage point where he wouldn't be disturbed. He decided to climb up on top of one of the crates.

Sitting down, Warren closed his eyes and focused on the people he could sense below. He smiled to himself, hoping for an interesting night, and he started them dreaming. One by one, he heard them fall down on the table. He could sense the guards as well, as they joined the collective brain-soup to form the dream. Warren looked into their minds, now available to him, and started to stimulate the fear senses. Once he felt the world start to form, he deposited himself back outside the warehouse, ready to join their collective acid-trip.

Warren entered the warehouse, covered in tattered clothes and some of his own blood. "Help me!" he screamed at them. "They're outside!" The men at the table laughed. "Please!" he begged of them. Still laughing, one of the men walked back to the door. Warren watched him go, smiling to himself as he heard the door open. He backed his dream-self away from the group as the screams started, conjuring up some dream-popcorn. "Have fun..."

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren observed the dream world from a bird's-eye-view. This wasn't as interesting as he had hoped it would be--he kept having to interfere to keep the men alive. The last thing he needed was for one of them to wake up and find him. If they kept going at this rate, he'd just go and find a different set of people to trap.

Below him, the poker players were fighting with the guards about how to get out. Their voices resonated in Warren's head. "Why don't we just head up to the roof? I'm sure we can get someone's attention."

"Right. You want to get eaten by those things, go ahead."

"What makes you think they're even up there?"

"They have WINGS, you moron!"

Warren was getting tired of this. Time to shake things up. He moved to the door and checked on the status of the barricade that was up. Deciding that listening to a bunch of men arguing wasn't interesting, he created another one of the creatures on the inside and had it push the boxes aside. Then another one pushed the door open.

It was interesting, what the combined fears of the men in the warehouse had created. They looked like some kind of hell-creature made from a spider, scorpion, and bat. The avatar of himself had died a long time ago-he had left it sitting in the corner of the warehouse, and that's where the swarm went now. Warren was gleefully disgusted as he watched them devour his bloody look-alike, then turn on the men in the warehouse.

Warren's concentration flickered for a second as something jostled his physical body. He quickly reinstated the dream, but focused on listening to the real world around him for some clue as to what happened. He couldn't hear anything, just the screams of the men from the dream. He sighed. It was time to lessen the load. He looked at the group, and decided it was time for the security guards to go. He jostled the stack of crates behind the group, knocking loose the boxes at the top of the stack and crushing the guards that stood below. Then he released them from the dream.

With only five people left in the dream, he was able to open his eyes and look at what really was going on below. He saw four men down at the poker table--two frozen in the positions they held at the start of the dream, one sprawled across the table, and one lying on the floor. That's when he saw what had screwed his concentration--one of the men was running away from an unseen creature, backing up against Warren's stack of crates.

"Damn sleepwalkers..." Warren muttered to himself. They always made the subtlety of his dreams much harder to maintain. Warren knew he couldn't let the sleepwalker out of the warehouse. He let his focus slip back into the dream.

The five men were cornered around Warren's stack of crates. Normally, Warren would have given them a fighting chance of getting out, but the sleepwalker changed things. The lesser load of the two guards meant he could make something bigger. Warren decided it was time to see how his victims would react to the swarm's queen.

At his cue, a massive dragon-sized creature ripped a hole in the side of the warehouse. Time for a slow, digestive death. The monster swept down and landed on the men below, crushing two of them. Warren felt another mind leave his world as one of the men died and was ripped from the dream. The man could be heard gasping and looking around as he bolted up from the floor in the real world. Warren then let the creatures descend around the four surviving men and devour them.

The dream ended. Warren poked his head over the boxes to see how the men below were reacting. The guard who had been crushed was scooping up all the money from the poker game, clearly hoping to get out before his friends woke up. The sleepwalker was limp in the corner. The two frozen players had collapsed onto the table as well. Warren sighed to himself as he turned and moved back towards the now-intact door. Always an anti-climax.

Warren left the warehouse, listening as the guards walked in on the poker players and started yelling at them hysterically. Clearly they had figured out the shared dream, and would no doubt be blaming the man with his hands full of money. They probably didn't even remember him--But just in case, Warren re-shifted his features and tinted his skin again, taking on the appearance of a Scandinavian twenty-something.

Finally, he exited the warehouse and was ready to start heading back to the city. Just as he was about to, however, he heard shouting above him and looked up to see a man dangling from the roof above him. Warren quickly moved back around the corner, having caught the glimpse of the massive dragon on the roof and not particularly in the mood to get involved with any other supers. Clearly this had something to do with the explosions earlier that night.

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren's eyes widened as the dragon moved towards him at a very rapid speed. His first instinct was to create a massive wall in front of him, before he remembered he wasn't inside one of his dreams. He wasn't used to dealing with large creatures in the real world. He quickly moved on too his second mode of defense, and tried to place the dragon into a dream state, only to find it didn't have a brain capable of dreaming--in fact, it didn't seem to be alive by any means Warren could discern.

Warren did the next best thing he could do--He ran, heading straight for the narrowest gap he could. The dragon was big-surely it couldn't follow him too closely. Unfortunately, the nearest gap between warehouses was a good 70 feet away. Warren made a beeline for it, hoping for all he was worth the dragon had dull claws.

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#, as written by LSunday
"I'd stop running if I were you.."

Warren, upon seeing the new creature from the warehouse, decided the crazy woman's advice was worth listening to. He stopped, and turned slowly back towards her voice. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. It just seemed the wisest choice, given that you, oh... SENT A DRAGON AFTER ME?!" He stopped himself. Not a dream, not a dream, he had to keep reminding himself. You won't wake up after being maimed.

Warren decided to get a look at his situation. Clearly the woman was controlling the creatures-Warren didn't know how many she had. The lion-goat-snake thing behind him seemed to have come from nowhere. While talking, he tried to get a sense of how many people were up on the roof. There was at least one other person, the man who fell. Hopefully, there were no others--he would be just as frozen as they would if he tried to wrap in more than two. "So. Care to explain why your chosen method of introduction is a massive, flying, death threat?"

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#, as written by LSunday
"You were eavesdropping, state your name and business in this area"

"Oh, you're a paranoid one. I was not eavesdropping! For the record, I had business in this warehouse before there were any dragons or lion-things!" Warren stopped again. Not a dream... He sighed. "My name is Joshua Hendrix, and my business is my own. And, since it's so VERY important to you that I don't listen in on your super-secret rendezvous on the roof of a warehouse with a very subtle dragon, I'm not going to bother asking what you're doing here."

As he spoke, Warren saw one of the men on the roof had left, leaving just the two of them to deal with. Perfect... He used the distraction of his speech to start capturing the other two in a dream world of his own. Making sure to keep the two creatures as exact as he could manage, Warren finished constructing the world and placed it in the minds of the man in hysterics and the dragon-woman before her.

Warren then left his dream-body where it was, as if nothing had changed, and slowly started backing off down the corner, careful to be sure the dream stayed stable. His dream-self spoke. "Now, may I please ask your name?"

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#, as written by LSunday
"Do you intend to harm these two now that you have them in your grasp?" Warren looked at the new arrival in the group. It was a very tall man with brown hair, green eyes. He had approached from around the corner, having just escaped the dreaming. It was turning into a rather interesting night-more interesting than any he'd had for a long time. Warren decided it was safe to respond. "No. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Not severely, any-"

He stopped as 'Envy' started accusing him of something. "This isn't funny Mr Hendrix.. this is a very cruel joke." Distracted by the new arrival, Warren had forgotten to keep the dragon and chimera animated. He sighed. This is why he didn't like dealing with real people. His dream-self started to speak. "There is no joke. Have no idea what you are talking about, Miss Envy or whatever. Now please, I would like to-"

Warren was hit with something. The real him, anyway. He fell to the ground, losing his focus on the dream and letting Envy and the other man flicker back to reality. His right shoulder was on fire. "What the hell?!" he shouted, grabbing his shoulder and pulling his hand back, covered in blood. He looked up and saw a quickly fading line of light heading off into the distance. "SNIPERS?!"

Warren tried to quickly reinstate a dream, but his mind was too preoccupied with the wound in his shoulder for him to focus.

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#, as written by LSunday
"Come on. I can get us out of here and tend to your wound... I don't know what you are but I can't let you die without good cause"

Warren took his hand. "That's very noble of you. Can you do it quickly, please?" Warren was lost to the the meaning behind the chaos ensuing. There was a massive glowing dome around them, the panicky man had passed out, and the woman with the dragon seemed to be very confused upon the ending of the dream. And all the while, his shoulder was still bleeding all over everything and he was struggling not to pass out and lose his currently-reorganized face. The last thing he wanted was for these lunatics to know what he really looked like.

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren leaned himself against a nearby street lamp. He watched his savior enter the pharmacy. "Was the carrying really necessary?" He muttered, keeping his pain under control by inducing a minor dream in his own mind. He waited where he was for the stranger to return. He tried to pull himself up to a standing position, but quickly fell back to a sitting position. He amplified the dream for its anesthetic effects, but wasn't able to completely drain out his own connection to the real world.

He turned his head to the street, opening up his mind. He started grabbing anyone he could-except his helper, inside the pharmacy-until he had ten people. Incorporating them into the dream with him, he lost his connection to the real world and the pain. He was struggling more than usual to maintain the dream-probably his brain trying to fix the wound in his shoulder-but now that the initial shock had worn off he found himself once again able to create his dreams.

He couldn't manipulate it, however. He let his Point of View swing around, watching the people move around. It was probably, he realized, the most boring dream he'd ever been part of. Five minutes, he reasoned. That would be how long it should take. Then he'd have to end the dream for his savior's benefit.

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren reluctantly ended the dream, to find the stranger leaning over him, making strange sounds. "Uhhhh... What are you doing?"

Warren stood up, using the street lamp for support again. He felt dizzy, and almost fell down again, but was able to lean against the pole. "I suppose I should thank you. Who exactly would I be thanking? I didn't catch your name. Busy getting shot and all." He put his hand back over his shoulder as his movement caused it to burn even more than it already was. He felt a pressure in his chest, and even when lying down, he was starting to feel dizzy, and was in a hurry to get somewhere more secure than a city street.

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#, as written by LSunday
"Too true," Warren said, once again nearly falling. "I don't suppose you could help me to the nearest hospital?". The pressurein Warren's chest seemed to be getting worse, and he did not trust his landlord to check on him if he wasn't seen for a few days. Not that he trusted his landlord to do anything without his help anymore.

"Just leave me there and you can forget we even met."

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren grimaced at being forced to walk. "If you're not going to help me get there, there's no real point in coming with me, is there?". Warren began walking. He kept something to lean on the whole route to the hospital, where he eventually reached the ER and passed out just inside.

--------------


Warren awoke in a hospital bed, his face returned to its normal look. He sighed. Nowhe'd have to choose a new faceto stick with for a while, and he'd have to get the other tenants to believehe'd moved out and replaced with his new look. Meaning more welcomes and... Ugh. he sighed.

Warren sat up. He was alone in his hospital bed, and had newer bandages pasted on his shoulder. He didn't have a shirt, but he could see his clothes sitting in the corner. There was an IV in his arm, and he was plugged in to several monitoring devices. He wondered what name he was admitted under. He'd just have to wait for a doctor to come by.

He could tell he must be on painkillers, as his shoulder had returned to a much duller throbbing. Still, it hurt, and Warren decided that his previous method of painkilling was most effective. Deciding the coma ward would be his best option for remaining undetected, he lay back and reached his mind out for anyone that seemed to already be sleeping.

--------------


Warren eventually ended the dream--a much calmer and less worrisome one than last night's horror-fest--and awoke to a doctor checking his vitals.

"Ah, good. You're awake."

"What happened?"

"We were hoping you could tell us. You came into the hospital last night in severe stages of shock, with a hastily patched gunshot wound. Do you remember that?"

Warren decided playing dumb was his best option. "Last night is mostly a blur... You said I was shot?!"

"Clean through the shoulder. Nearly killed you. For future knowledge, when suffering from traumatic injuries it is best to stay where you are. You're lucky you managed to get here before falling unconscious, or you might not have survived the night."

"Well, I don't exactly plan on any future traumatic injuries." Warren paused. "How long do you need to keep me?"

"A few days. Afterthat, you should get home and rest for a while. Bullet wounds can have long-lasting effects, so I'm going to recommend a physical therapist to ensure a full recovery."

Warren frowned. A few days would bring up too many questions he didn't want to answer. "Alright," he said, secretly planning to get out later that night.

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren, or Joshua, (Although he was starting to think he would go by Aubrey until people forgot about his existence) was keeping an eye on the time. He was waiting for it to get dark-no one would think anything was odd with a lot of people sleeping in the middle of the night. But it would be a long time yet before he could make an easy escape. Besides, the longer he kept the nurse downstairs asleep, the more information he could learn to help self-medicate. He was still in a corner of her mind, reading through a computer access point to get at her memories while she believed she was going about her day.

Warren was interrupted by a man sticking his head in the room. "Uh... can I help you?" Warren said, wishing he'd been focusing more on keeping his face rearranged. He kept the dream with the nurse running, however-it was easy to maintain one person. He started getting ready to add the stranger in, however. This man knew what he looked like, and he was certainly acting weird. And Warren couldn't be sure from this distance, but there seemed to be something weird about his eyes. "I'm not expecting anyone. Maybe you have the wrong room?"

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#, as written by LSunday
The storm siren interrupted them before the stranger could respond to Warren's question. Warren imkmediately let the nurse out of his grip-people would find it odd if she slept through the siren, and it wasn't good for her to be left vulnerable to anything dangerous. An ion storm meant the hospital would soon be full of people who'd been caught in the street.

Warren sighed, knowing this was going to put a damper on his escape plans. Still, no one would mind another open bed, not with the influx of people they were expecting. Warren turned back to the stranger. "Well, if you're visiting, looks like you're stuck here for a while. They don't like people moving around the halls during potential emergencies. And if you're a patient, could you stand over there so I don't get anything? I'm hoping to be discharged as soon as possible."

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren was glad he had let the nurse go. Upon hearing the stranger was a power, he immediately began constructing a dream that he would be able to broadcast at a moment's notice. He made sure to get every detail of the room right. He probably wouldn't be able to return to the hospital once he left. Which reminded him, he needed to figure out which name he had been checked into the hospital with. "Well, given that we haven't had the good fortune to be introduced before, and you must know my name from the door outside, may I ask who you are? And, while we're at it, can you explain how you are 'like me'?"

Feigning ignorance was probably the way to go. Besides, it wasn't unheard of for supers of his age to not know of their abilities yet. Maybe he could convince the stranger his powers hadn't manifested.

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"Yeah, I know what supers are. But you're not seriously implying..." Warren started, interrupting himself with a laugh. If there was one thing he'd become good at through his dreams, it was lying. But still, if this man could sense his ability, he could probably also figure out he'd been honing it since middle school. However, he didn't seem too threatening. "You are, aren't you?"

Warren sat up, wincing as the bandages tightened, but for the most part his shoulder felt fine. They said it would be a while before the hole was gone, but if he stayed relatively inactive he'd be fine. He didn't think, the way yesterday had gone, he'd get the chance to be inactive. He might have to see if there was any healing supers in town he could get to do him a favor. He looked at the man, Kyruel. "Look, I don't know what you can or can't sense, but I'm not like you. Got it?"

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren perked his head up at this. If this man could heal him, he wouldn't have to worry about any long-term damage to his shoulder. Not that it would make a huge difference-he spent enough time in dreams physical injuries shouldn't matter-but he did like his current mobility. "Why do I have to know about my power for you to heal me?" He wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to set himself up for a serial murder. He'd heard about this one guy, in Italy, that had caught 15 supers off-guard before the police found him, and he was a normal person. Or he could be some government recruiter, and Warren thought that would get just as messy. "Can't you just heal me on your own?"

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"That sounds... Noble." Warren said, smiling at him, "but I don't like to get involved in things like that. And," Vague language was the way to go here, "I don't think I'd be very useful anyway." He wasn't really lying, since his dreams weren't particularly useful for any form of combat. They were purely a passive ability. Although....

A plan formed in Warren's mind. He sent out his dream to Kyruel, encompassing him inside the faux hospital. "I don't really like being involved, but if you can heal me, I'll owe it to you to join this 'team' of yours." Warren immediately started to think through how to play this. If he knew about his abilities, it was possible he might know they were psychic in nature. But that didn't mean he knew what they were. The man would probably ask him to demonstrate, so...

Warren decided he would go with mind control. He waited for the inevitable question.

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Warren froze. Clearly, he had underestimated the man's ability to detect him. This would be difficult to explain, especially if he continued trying to feign ignorance. "You can understand my caution, surely," Warren said to him. "And I think I'll leave this up, thank you. Don't worry, though. I can't do any harm to you. You're safe here. Only now, I can ensure my safety as well. After all, a strange man I've never seen before walked into my room and claimed to be a super, then asked me to join some kind of team. I'd just like to make sure I'll survive the wrong answer."

There was no point in keeping the illusion anymore, though. Warren removed the bullet wound from his dream-shoulder, and had his avatar stand up. "You're probably wondering what this is. And, at this point, there's nothing for me to gain through not telling you, so I might as well. You are currently in a dream state, experiencing a world I have full control over. The real you is currently sleeping in that very chair you're sitting in." As he talked, Warren turned to the wall and made it fade away, revealing the alien landscape he chose to replace the city with. Massive trees twisted in and out of each other as a purple sun set on the horizon. A massive lake with a strange red water lay below their room. "I can do anything I want with this world. Including, if I wanted to, murder." Warren punctuated this by materializing a knife in his hands. "Not that it would hurt the real you. You'd just wake up. So, I don't think I could be much use to your team. Although, if the offer still stands..." Warren let the dream fade back to the hospital bed and himself, returning the bullet wound to his shoulder. "I'd really appreciate some kind of healing."

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#, as written by LSunday
Warren looked at the man carefully. If he had time, he could probably use the dream to find if he was lying, but this man was clearly able to tell if he was or wasn't in a dream. He reached out and shook Kyruel's hand. "Well, then I guess we have a deal." Warren let the dream fade, but kept the world up in case Kyruel chose to betray him.

Warren didn't actually intend to join Kyruel. He'd stick around for a day or two, but then he'd change his appearance. Maybe trick his landlord into moving somewhere else. He'd have to come up with a full identity, though. The hospital had clearly displayed the name officially on records, and Warren Hartgrave wasn't safe anymore. Maybe he'd become something more vague... common. John Smith? Nah... he thought. He needed something less obvious. He'd choose a name later. Now, he just wanted the hole out of his shoulder.

"So what do I need to do?" he asked as Kyruel awoke in the chair across the room.