Origin - Eight - Rending Nightmare

“I need you to sleep at my place.”

Marcia choked, spluttered, then pounded her chest with a fist while coughing.

Alice watched the teenaged-girl-looking-succubus as she worked hard to regain control of her own breathing. It took a while. “You want me to what?” Marcia asked.

They were sitting at what Alice presumed was the ‘popular kids’ table. All of the prettiest and smartest girls were here, as well as a few lucky guys. Alice wouldn’t have minded being at literally any other table, but Marcia wouldn’t allow that.

The young woman had a very strong streak of... Alice wasn’t sure if there was a polite word for it, but it boiled down to Marcia needing to feel superior to everyone else, including when it came to where she sat at school.

It took no time at all for the girl to attract sycophants, and Alice might have worried that there was magic at use except that Dream Charter had been on the lookout for that, and so far the magical sword claimed that Marcia’s social graces and ease of manipulation were all entirely mundane.

Or as mundane as a tailored version of their uniform whose neckline plunged deeper than normal and a body that was... distracting could be.

Alice refocused. She had gotten used to ignoring the fawning girls--and boys--and somehow had cemented her place in the social hierarchy as a studious bitch who happened to be the most popular girl in school’s best friend.

She didn’t know how she felt about that.

“I said, I need you to sleep at my place,” Alice repeated. She then chewed on a mouthful of beans.

“Oh, well, if you’re asking so nicely,” Marcia said, a little breathless. She fanned herself. “You know, usually when I’m with someone, they’re not so formal about things. I like my arrangements a little more... casual.”

Alice paused, then grabbed a pinch of rice and beans and flicked them across the table. “Don’t be crass,” she said. “It’s nothing like... that. You pervert.”

“You don’t want your first time to be with me?” Marcia asked, clearly disappointed.

Alice gave her a disgusted look.

“Come on, I’ve seen the way you stare, it’s cute.”

“No, stop,” Alice said as she reigned in any sort of blushing. “I need you at my place for... work-related stuff.”

“That’s not nearly as fun,” Marcia said. Then she proceeded to continue to tease Alice. She often pushed the limit, but when Alice warned her off, she would back up, at least for an hour or two. The woman was incorrigible, but for all that, Alice found herself enjoying her company.

It was why she had decided to try out the first phase of her plan with Marcia before she really put any effort into it. That was something else her grandfather had taught her. If you have an idea, then it’s worth trying it small. Small failures are easy to overcome, and teach many small lessons.

Classes continued on, and Alice found herself coasting along in most of them. She put some effort in, of course, but... well, she suspected she was at the top of her class in every class.

The language classes were a joke when her magic allowed her to speak and understand English and Spanish without any thought, the math came naturally to her, and while she had to study for history and geography, she found it so much easier to keep track of things. Physical classes were a non-issue, of course. If anything she had to hide how fast and agile she was. And then the science classes were even easier than some of the others. They mostly required that she memorise some basic materials.

Had becoming a magical girl made her smarter?

That was a heady thought.

Classes ended, and Alice found Marcia waiting for her at the edge of the school campus. Together, they headed towards Alice's home. She didn’t live too far away. It was a short bus ride from the nearest stop to the school and towards the entrance of the suburbs right on the edge of the busier part of the city.

Marcia talked the entire time, prattling on about the local gossip and who was doing what with whom and so on. Alice was surprised by how little she cared. She had never been as much of a gossip as some of the people she knew--her mother said that gossip took precedence over football as the national sport--but now it all felt wildly unimportant, especially when so many people seemed to have forgotten about the attack on the school and mall already.

She got off at the stop nearest her home, hiked up her backpack to make it sit right, then walked alongside Marcia towards home.

It came up soon enough. A little two-storey place, with a garage to one side that had a flat roof that they’d converted into a patio. A few flower boxes hung from the windows, and there was a small gate keeping the small yard they had out front clear. The roads here were all big cobbles, worn smooth by passing cars and feet, and constantly uneven no matter how much people complained to the city about them.

It was a nice home to grow up in, with just her, her parents, and once her grandparents, though they had passed on some time ago.

A good quarter of the homes in this neighbourhood were cousins or second cousins, uncles and aunts and long-time friends of the family.

When there was a wedding, or a baby was born, the entire community would come out to rejoice.

Alice suspected that that was part of why she had been pushed so hard. Having a successful young daughter was a point of pride here. Plenty of the neighbourhood kids a few years older than her were going to prestigious colleges, and that status was something their family would wear with pride.

This was a tight-knit community, but it was one aiming for better.

Alice unlocked the front door, then stepped in and flicked her shoes off by the entrance. Marcia did the same while glancing around. “Nice place,” she said.

“Thanks,” Alice said absently. Her house wasn’t that nice, but it was clean and well-maintained, which made up for a lot. “Come on, I’ll show you to my room.”

“Oh, already,” Marcia said. “Are you planning on ravishing me? Because I’d be okay with that, and you know I’m not lying.”

“There will be no ravishing,” Alice said. “Or anything else perverted. Keep your hands to yourself.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” Marcia said.

Alice’s room was a small space in the back of the house, but it had a window with a nice view into the backyard where they had a few trees--including a mango tree that wasn’t in season--and the room had space for her desk and some room to walk around in. It wasn’t bad, by any means, but she was keenly aware that it was a little small for two people to be occupying it.

“Alright, let me explain what’s going to happen,” Alice said. She flicked her hand to the side and Dream Charter appeared, the rapier’s comforting weight pressing into her palm.

Marcia’s eyes locked on the sword, not with envy or her usual poorly disguised lust, but with a flash of fear that was gone almost as soon as it appeared. “Are you going to undress me with that?”

“Lay on my bed,” Alice said.

The succubus’ eyebrows shot up. “Wow! I... you know, I didn’t actually expect to get that far. I was just teasing, but if it’s what you want!”

“I’m going to make you fall asleep,” Alice said. “And then I’m going to give you nightmares.”

“Um,” Marcia said. “That’s significantly less hot.”

Alice shrugged. “I’m the Queen of Nightmares, or somesuch, aren’t I? It shouldn’t be too hard. I know I can give people dreams. I tested it on a dog.”

“And I’m the next guinea pig? Straight from dogs to poor Marcia?”

“I wouldn’t test it on a human,” Alice said.

“Ouch,” Marcia said.

Alice rolled her eyes. “I need to see if it works on a demon, like you. I can hardly fetch another volunteer from the bowels of Hell, can I?”

“Alright, and what kind of nightmare are we talking here?”

Alice frowned. “Is there something you’re afraid of?”

“That’s not a nice opener,” Marcia said.

Alice shook her head. “No, no, I’ll avoid anything like that. I... don’t want to hurt you here, I want to test if this sort of magic works at all. Then I can scale it up, see if it works at range, maybe see if I can’t send a nightmare to someone in Hell.”

Marcia sat up on Alice’s bed. “You want to spook the lords of Hell?” she asked. It was a big leap to make, but one that wasn’t altogether incorrect.

“Not just them,” Alice said.

The succubus paused for a moment, then flopped back onto the bed, laughing. “You’re gonna spook the entirety of Hell?”

“I don’t even know if that’s possible,” Alice said. "My magic seems strong, I guess, but... well, I imagine there’s a lot of people in Hell.”

“Sure, sure,” Marcia said. “Keep thinking that you’re that weak, please, it makes it easier on me. But, by God’s saggy tits, you’re going to make a mess, you know?”

“I want to warn them away from Earth, from me,” Alice said.

Marcia shook her head. “I don’t know if that’ll work. It might, for some of the smarter ones. But you don’t need to be smart to be powerful down in Hell, just strong, and a few idiots will take this as a challenge. Not that those idiots aren’t already going to cause trouble, mind you.”

“You don’t think my idea will work?”

“Your idea is the equivalent of setting off a nuke next to the shore of a foreign country as a friendly reminder that they’re not beyond your reach. Some will sue for peace, sure, but others will just want to fight you even more.”

“But they’re going to want to fight me regardless,” Alice said. “This is me giving them a fair warning, and maybe stalling for time. I want and need to get stronger in the meantime. So... yes, lay down, close your eyes, and go to sleep.”

Marcia did as Alice said, though not without turning around and fluffing up Alice’s pillow, then giving it a sniff as if to see if it was dirty.

She rested on her back, then stared at the ceiling. “This isn’t going to work, usually to fall asleep, I need a good f--”

Alice concentrated for just a moment and Marcia’s eyes fluttered shut.

Soon the succubus on her bed was breathing calmly. She snored, Alice discovered.

Setting Dream Charter aside--the sword was content to hover in the air, in defiance of gravity or common sense--she stretched her back until it popped, made sure her door was locked, then sat on her desk’s chair and spun it to face Marcia.

Then she set her elbows on her knees and focused on the demoness.

She could feel the woman’s sleeping mind. It was dreamless at the moment, empty in a way that always felt a little strange to perceive. In that place between sleep and dreaming, but gently sinking towards the dreaming world. The world where Alice was supposed to reign, at least according to her magic sword.

All she had to do was give Marcia a little metaphorical push... and there she was, her sleep more profound, her mind at once more active, but also more disjointed... and then Alice rolled her eyes and allowed her cheeks to flame a little. Of course the snippets of dreams she caught from Marcia were exactly what she should have expected.

With a long suffering sign, Alice grabbed a hold of her magic and got to work.

***