As Atropos drifted off into the darkness of sleep, she fell into a dream. At first the dream made little sense, consisting of flashing colors and swiftly moving shadows. Her dreams reflected her disorganized mind, changing constantly and shifting from one thing to another. One moment she felt herself being trapped in a dark cage, and the next she was free-falling off a building. While her chaotic mind threw her from one dream to the next, she felt a strange feeling overcome her, and then the dream faded into blackness, her mind no longer controlling it.

She found herself standing in a dark and empty plane. Even though there did not appear to be any light source, she could still see, somewhat. Everything beyond a few yards faded into a thick black fog, and she couldn't see through that at all. There wasn't anything here, and Atropos was beginning to wonder why her dream had led her here and left her alone. However, it wasn't long before she began to see movement in the shadowy clouds.

Hundreds of objects began to walk out of the clouds. They took on various forms, some of them humanoid, others more arachnid in shape, but all of them were completely made from shadow and had no features to speak of. Atropos sensed a feeling of malevolence from the shadow creatures, and telekinetically brought her shears from her boot into her hand, holding them at the ready should she be attacked.

Indeed, they did begin to attack. Atropos threw aside the first few attackers with a blast of telekinesis, and then started stabbing at the next few creatures. The ones that were stabbed dissipated and vanished, but the ones thrown aside simply stood up again. The creatures began to beat at Atropos with their limbs, none of them carrying any weapons. She again blasted them all aside, and started spraying the nearest ones with a volatile burst of white matter from her palms. The caustic alkaline caused several of the creatures to disappear, but more just kept coming.

Atropos shouted as she summoned a particularly powerful explosion of telekinesis, sending all the creatures back several feet and onto their backs. She began to prepare tentacles and ropes of black matter, which extended out of her back and from her arms. She started whipping the ropes around, destroying some of the smaller creatures, and pushing back the rest.

Some of the creatures began to sneak up behind her, but she grabbed them with the black tentacles, and started smashing them against the other shadows. Even though she was sure this was all a dream, the attacks seemed to physically hurt, and her own actions began to physically wear her out. She transmuted all the black matter into nets of sticky wires, sort of like a spider's web, and threw out the nets to hold back the creatures. Those not entangled in the nets she drew forward with telekinesis and stabbed in the face with her shears.

The shears, she noticed, were draining the shadow creatures' energy and restoring some of her own energy when she used them, as they would in real life. Stabbing several more creatures, and decapitating many of them as well, she restored a good amount of energy. Some of the creatures were beginning to get themselves free of the sticky webs, and Atropos covered them in a layer of white matter, killing a large number of them all at once.

Although the creatures seemed innumerable, Atropos kept fighting them off. She had a relatively good strategy of using bursts of telekinesis to push them away whenever they got too close. However, it seemed that they weren't the mindless creatures they appeared to be, and started to work around her strategy. They began to all rush at once, giving her little chance to push them all away, surrounding her in a sea of shadows, beating at her continuously. When she tried to push them away, they didn't go far before the ones behind them pushed them forward again.

Feeling surrounded and helpless, Atropos thought of a solution. She focused her psychokinesis on herself and on the ground, and with a great leap she flew over the crowd, nearly five yards away. She noticed that some of the creature's attacks had caused her to bleed, but her dark purple blood was already beginning to heal the wounds. She quickly started to cover herself in black matter, hardening it and forming flexible joints, building a sort of crude suit of armor. Using some more black matter she fabricated two long and sharp, yet light, swords.

Her eyes glinted red as she dashed into the crowd of shadow creatures with a shout, slicing through them like paper. The shadows began to beat against her armor, doing little damage to it. Atropos continued to slash and stab the mysterious black beings, finally beginning to noticeably deplete their numbers. They weren't done with their tricks though, apparently.

The last few hundreds of creatures all began to deform and mutate. Atopos was confused as to what they were doing, but realized it soon enough. The shadows all grouped together, and solidified into a single massive entity. The entity seemed somewhat primate-like in appearance, and had four limbs and a head. The creature slammed its arm against Atropos, shattering her armor in a single blow and sending her flying. Another blow would probably deal serious damage, and Atropos quickly rolled out of the way of the next crashing arm.

Apparently sympathizing with the girl, five tall white humanoid creatures formed from the shadowy mists, and began to throw spears of light at the dark monster, distracting it. Atropos took the opportunity to dive behind the monster. It turned around to find her, but took more attacks from the white creatures. It quickly retaliated against them, stomping on two of them. Atropos gripped her shears, and leaped up onto the monster's back. It reached with its arms, trying to grab her, but she stabbed at its hands when they came near.

Trying to crush her, it fell onto its back, but Atropos quickly vaulted over the beast's shoulder before it landed and stabbed the creature in the forehead. Right afterward, the remaining three white creatures flew over and stabbed the creature in the head with their spears. The beast roared, and then dissipated into the dark clouds, along with the three benevolent spirits.

^ # ^ # ^

Atropos flew into a sitting position, finding herself back in her dark bedroom. She reached for the lamp on the bedside table next to her and turned it on, lighting up the room. She looked around, breathing heavily.

"I guess...it was all a dream?" she said to herself.

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~ [stormcloud] ~ [apokalypsis] ~ [nightshade] ~ [i.s.a.a.c.] ~ [eidolon] ~