Sunny and Rain found themselves in a grassy plane that stretched further than either of them could see. All that they could see was each other, and the thousands of stars that burned brightly in the night sky.
'Well this is a bit different from the first time around.'
The first time Sunny entered Dreamscape, he had to enter his pod and was sent into the black void, naked and disoriented. This time, his clothes stayed with him. A pleasant, familiar voice entered his head.
"Challenger! Welcome to the Dreamscape."
'Damn that brings back some memories.' Sunny felt the nostalgia rolling over him.
"Before proceeding further, please choose an alias."
Sunny blinked a couple times, then scratched the back of his head.
'Oh, right. An alias…'
Sunny had a strange feeling of Deja Vu, then fell deep into thought. He thought about his first naming attempt, the birth of Mongrel. Of how he could have ended up with a terribly embarrassing name if it wasn't for the valiant sacrifice of "Uh" and "What? No, Wait!"
The thought crossed his mind, would 'that' name be available?
"Nobody"
"Welcome, Nobody."
Sunny grinned. This iteration of Dreamscape was essentially a reboot, the metadata with names were reset and people who didn't have the chance of fetching a unique name now had a chance of snagging one for themselves. Of course, Sunny and Rain were essentially beta-testing and had first dibs.
'The wonders of nepotism!'
The Dreamscape was silent after Sunny selected his name. Sunny looked over at Rain, whose eyebrows went scrunched in thought. She was obviously thinking of her own alias, wanting it to sound cool. Sunny kept his smile on his face, and then called out,
"You should take the name 'Mongrel'."
Rain looked over at Sunny and mouthed silently, 'Why?'
"Just trust me."
Rain sighed, and then spoke aloud, "Mongrel".
"Welcome, Mongrel"
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"So, why did you take on that clearly og name Nobody, and left me with some weird name Mongrel?"
"Because, it's my gift to you. It's essentially a family heirloom." Sunny replied nonchalantly.
"What? What kind of heirloom is that?" Rain glared at her brother suspiciously.
"The kind that comes with a really cool mask that grants you demonic powers!"
"What the fu-?"
Rain rushed towards Sunny and swung her fists at his chest. She started wailing away at his short torso.
"Wait wait, ahahaha, wait! The name really is my heritage, and the mask I'll give you is kinda cool! Wait!" Sunny was laughing as Rain tried to assault him to no avail.
———
"So your flaw doesn't allow you to kill right? What do you think the opposite of your flaw is?"
"Uh, I don't know, I can kill now?" Rain replied sarcastically. She was a bit miffed at Sunny for the mask.
"No, no, that wouldn't be a flaw then. Your flaw's opposite is still a flaw, so what most likely will happen is that you will be forced to kill. Everything you do must be a lethal threat. The only thing is how that will be fulfilled." Sunny explained his theory that he had been cooking up for weeks. "We don't know if every single one of your actions must be trying to kill something, or any attack you do will be redirected to becoming super lethal."
"I see." Rain nodded slowly, digesting her teacher's words. "But how do you reverse a flaw?"
"With a divine memory." Sunny replied with a slight smirk.
"Haha." Rain sighed at her brother's antics. "And we have plenty of those lying around. Do you have a divine back scratcher for me to use?"
"A back scratcher? I can probably craft you one for your birthday." Sunny scratched his nose. "But I do have a couple of divine memories. One of them allegedly makes me look super scary. It's the face of a daemon that almost fried my brain when I put it on. I've also gotten my hands on a lantern that is a pocket dimension into the corpse of a god. A racist immortal skull with one arm is waiting for me to kill him. Lovely guy by the way."
Rain stared at Sunny, then facepalmed herself for literally saying anything. 'His god damned flaw. And my god damned mouth.' Rain regretted asking him about literally anything and decided to move on.
"So, the whole point of us being here is to see if your arsenal of divine, illicitly gained memories can let me kill things. Better yet, they may cause me to go on an uncontrollable murderous rampage. Did I get that right?"
Sunny pulled out the Weaver's Mask and reached out to Rain. "Yep."
"Fuc-" The mask smothered Rain's voice.
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After an extensive amount of trials, Sunny had all the info he needed on Rain's 'reverse' flaw. She was able to kill of course, but she had the uncanny ability to aim for lethal attacks. A typical fighter would have full control of their fighting style and choice of target, whether it be arms, legs, wrists, face, or heart. Rain however, would be forced to aim at traditionally lethal areas, such as the neck, heart, and arteries when exposed. Her body under the influence of Simple Trick would automatically guide her to aim at these lethal areas of the body whenever she would enter combat.
In other words, it was simply a combat boon. The ability to automatically aim at lethal areas of enemies allowed for swift and deadly strikes that were efficient. It was a truly sinister boon.
'By the dead gods, Rain will become a killing machine. So much for that lack of killer instinct, with the Weaver's Mask she is a monster.' Sunny mused on the idea of training his sister to become an assassin with the mask. There was also the matter of her epitaphs…
"So, what now? We confirmed that I can now participate in the tournament, is there anything else that you wanted to do?" Rain peeked at her musing brother and asked.
"Huh? Oh, we're done with the experiments. However, I wanted to give you something for the tournament to even up some odds. Do you remember the final battle of Godgrave?"
"Pretty vividly, yeah."
"Well, I gave you a shadow of mine to boost up all of your physical attributes. You really needed it at the time to survive that hell hole. Now, I will give it to you only for the most dire and unfair of odds. It's not a free lunch, but something as a last resort which I will be the judge of." Sunny started reminiscing about his time as Mongrel in the battle royale. Getting jumped by 12 awakened was not something he wished upon anyone, especially his dear little sister.
"Sounds fair, although I don't see why I'd need it. It's not like I'll be teamed up on by like 7 people or anything," Rain answered innocently
Sunny suddenly had a bad premonition. He put his palm to his face and sighed.
"Ugh, Nevermind. I think that's all right? Oh, last thing. That mark I left on you? I can loan you some memories using it as a link. That's how I'll send you the Weaver's Mask to use during the DSO."
"Oh, this guy?" Rain looked in her shirt and at her own chest at the onyx serpent. Her brother had bestowed it to her before her escapades with the Seventh Legion and her cohort. It was a cute looking snake.
"You know how it allows you to see in the dark and all that? It also allows for my shadow to envelop your body and empower you, as well as let me transfer memories to you." Sunny really liked that ability of Serpent's. He could worry less about Rain because he can leave tools for her to use.
"Thanks oppa, you've been really good to me recently. We should go hang out or something after this, for all the time we've been together." Rain was feeling appreciative towards her older brother. He was watching out for her for quite a while, it was only natural for her to want to spend time with him.
"Actually I gotta go, I've got a meeting with Nephis to help her with some, uh, stuff. There's an exit portal for you to use, I'll prepare a private portal for you away from the public." Sunny seemed a bit hurried to leave for some reason.
"Can we hang out a bit tomorrow then?" Rain asked.
"No, I'll be busy tomorrow."
"Oh, how about the day after?"
"Also busy then." Rain noticed Sunny's eyes dodging her own now. He seemed a bit suspicious…
"How about three days from now? I wanna spend time with my big brother at that new cafe in Bastion, to make up for all the time you haven't been here. Come on oppa…" Rain weaponized her puppy eyes towards Sunny. She suspected that something was up with him.
'Damnation! Of all the days Rain decided to act like a sweet little sister!' Sunny started biting the inside of his cheek and turned his face away.
Rain put her arms behind her back and started approaching Sunny with her head tilted. The classic fake-innocence technique was being used. In truth, she knew Sunny was most likely hanging out with sister-in-law with nefarious intent on his mind. Rain just wanted to tease him for all the crap he put her through.
"Why are you so busy for so long? Sometimes, your younger sister misses her older brother. All you do is work work work all the time and can't spend a minute with your disciple." Rain knew that her guilt tripping was working by the way Sunny's shoulders started quivering. He was so easy to read sometimes.
"It's okay… I know that you're probably busy. Big brother's a Supreme with lots of responsibilities after all. How about you just bring one of your other bodies for me to hang out with." Rain relented and let her brother, or rather this body of his, off the hook. "Please say hi to my sister-in-law for me alright?"
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh," Sunny was screwed and he knew it. 'Oh shit.' There was a pause.
Rain's eyes narrowed. 'Wait a damn second. There's no way…,' An idea, a ridiculous, scandalous, perverted theory started forming in her mind. She decided to prod, "Are ALL of your bodies busy with her?"
Sunny flinched.
"How about… after the tournament when we hang out, Rain. I uh, I can't spare any bodies for a while…" Sunny sheepishly replied. He scratched the back of his neck for a second. He turned his face back to Rain, only to see a blur flying to his face.