yumemigaoka | June catch-all (and also some of May lmao)

[Sonic's doing his usual thing; running around, taking out Torments as they show up... He'd miss the major fight in the Slumbering City, only showing up at the end of it to help corral the mass of Torments whatever-it-was dissolved into. He'd complained about missing the action, but that was mostly for appearances. The important bit was that the city and all the Dreamers were... Mostly all right.

But since he got away nearly scot-free, Sonic feels like it was the least he could do to help take out the leftover Torments still menacing this part of the Dream Sphere. Which means-]

Oh no you don't!

[and there's a bright blue streak that runs past Omen to cut of his escape for a moment before he realizes that this guy's just colourful enough in this dreary zone to not be a Torment]

... Oh wha- Whoops. [he stands up, a little sheepishly in English;] Sorry. [then back to Japanese;] Thought you were a Torment there for a moment. No offense, but you kinda blend in with the crowd.

[he might be speaking a little too quickly, since he's not aware that the person he's talking with isn't a native Japanese speaker themselves]

Uh...

[Well, he didn't get all of that, but he understood the apology. And he can sort of guess the rest. This wouldn't be the first time he's been mistaken for some sort of Torment. Back in the day, his clothes - his whole thing - used to be a lot brighter, but...well, anyway.

He waves a shadowy hand. His accent probably does make it clear that Japanese isn't his first language. He's a little self-conscious about it these days, but...at least he's getting good enough at the language to worry about accent?]

It's okay! It's fine. I'm, uh... [Just kinda gesturing at all of himself.]

[blue ears perk up when he hears the accent]

Oh! Not Japanese? What are you more comfortable with? Anything works for me!

[He gives the other, spookier Dreamer a thumbs up. The upside of travelling and living around the globe as much as he has means he can easily put multilingual on his resume! So long as it remains on a casual conversation level and no one decides to bust out the thesaurus to sound smart... Okay, so maybe it's not resume quality, but it's certainly something that comes in handy now and again!]

But hey, it looks like most of the water that was here drained out at least. Is uh... This place usually flooded like that?

Oh, uh...you speak Spanish?

[It'd be nice to talk to someone in his native language again! He hasn't managed it consistently for a while. Yumemigaoka's pretty multicultural and all, but people here usually have English as a second language instead. Bruno understands a bit of that too, but he's never worked at it like he's been doing with Japanese.

He'll go on in Spanish once it's confirmed, though. The Omen voice is...almost immediately not a thing, he really does better with that when he's prepared to meet people.]

Uh - no, no, not really. It hasn't rained this much since I started coming here. I've been a little worried about it, with the tunnels and all.

[But, he's here anyway. Not like he'll drown for real.]

[Sonic holds out a hand to indicate 'sort of' before switching to pretty straightforward Spanish. Unlike his English and Japanese, Sonic actually sounds like someone who's only sort of familiar with the language]

I'm all right with Spanish. [a pause, then he points to his ears with both hands, a gesture that suits a cute girl more than a teenage boy but maybe he's trying to break the tension] Better at listening!

[and for his own sake, he switches back to- Hold on, which one would this Spanish guy prefer? Sonic uses English in the interim] Which is easier for you, English or Japanese?

But huh. It was flooded when all of that was going down, but it looked like it was going away towards the end there. I figured I'd swing by and see how things looked.

[his eyes light up at the prospect of adventure] Wouldn't hurt to check those tunnels out, yeah?

Uh - Japanese, probably.

[He'll go on in Japanese, then!]

I know a little English, it's kinda everywhere, but Japanese is the one I've been studying. And uh - yeah, I guess it probably wouldn't hurt.

[...

.....

............wait]

Oh, wait, you want me to come?

All right! My speaking Spanish isn't great, but I understand it well enough. If you need to switch over for anything, it's no problem.

[... That's in Engrish. Why he continues to insist on putting on an accent when he speaks English fluently is a mystery.

You know what's not a mystery? This short kid nodding enthusiastically at Omen when he asks if Sonic wants him to come along]

From the sounds of it, you've been around longer, right? So if we spot anything weird, you'll probably have a better idea of "ah, that's weird!" [he hops and points at empty space for emphasis] than I would.

Can't run in too deep - I'd like to avoid any flooded parts if I can - but it wouldn't hurt, yeah?

Um. Well. Yeah, sure, okay.

[Omen still sounds faintly baffled at the whole concept, but it's impossible to tell what's going on with his face underneath that hood.]

I know my way through the tunnels pretty well. It should be fine as long as we don't go too deep.

Fantastic!

And if there's nothing down there, then neither of us have to write a report if we don't want to~

[he sounds so unbelievably chipper about this... Little does Sonic realize he's going to get stuck writing a report about his investigations for this later.

Not this one though. This one is just for fun (because that's definitely the adjective one associates with gloomy settings, 'fun')]

I feel a little bad missing out on that big fight, but I was running around out here trying to figure out if there was any connections between the earthquake and these zones, but... [he shakes his head with a sigh]

Report...?

[Oh, wait, like if you work for the DU. Officially and in a Dreamer capacity.]

Oh, I don't do those. The fight, though...heh, you didn't miss much. It wasn't a great time.

I don't either! But apparently, it's 'strongly recommended' that I do. So here I am, stuck in paperwork no-man's-land.

[Sonic doesn't even flinch at the prospect that Omen isn't with the DU. Technically, he's not either. But he mentioned what he noticed to someone at the DU off hand and now he's here. Talking maybe a little too fast because, to him, desk work is the worst work]

No, big fights like that usually aren't. [he says it with a pretty carefree attitude] But it's a good thing that it attacked the City and not one of these outer areas. Imagine taking that thing on alone!

[he didn't even see it, but he saw the destruction in it's wake and he saw how worn out everyone looked. Sonic can put two and two together]

Oh, you...you couldn't. I mean, I couldn't! I don't really think anyone could, it was...huge. And there was a lot going on, it had a lot of hands, and no face...

[.....]

But anyway, uh. Seems like it's not gonna come back or anything?

[while Omen talks, Sonic does little gestures along with it. Wobbly arms that end in jazz hands for 'a lot of hands' and then waving both of said hands over his face. Is he taking this seriously?]

If it does decide to come back, we just need to be more prepared for it. And if not that, then we need to figure out how to stop it from coming back.

[he points to one of the tunnels leading into the Necropolis, jerking his head in the same direction]

And if part of that is investigating these areas, that's what we'll have to do. Having someone who knows what this place looks like before everything went down will be a huge help.

It fell apart into all these Torments.

[Though, he shrugs a little as he says it. Omen's well aware that this doesn't mean it couldn't reform, or come back, or there couldn't just be another one.]

This tunnel mostly leads back and not down, let's try this way...there's a few larger chambers too. Just watch your head. [Despite his own apparent seven-foot height, Omen appears to be navigating the cramped tunnels just fine. Don't worry about how it's working exactly.]

... And we're sure it wasn't a bigger than normal Nightmare?

[the seriousness is here and gone in a flash, fickle as the wind it seems. But his wide grin at the directions as he jogs after Omen is undeniable]

Nice!

See? Lookit that, I would have been running around in circles trying to figure out where to go without you!

[he says it with such confidence because that may or may not have been what happened the last few times he came here. Running around in circles screaming about how confusing this place is... Just because he's been in similar places doesn't mean he has to like them every time they pop up]

No, I've never seen one like that before. It could...talk, sort of. And you couldn't really look right at it.

[Omen leads the way around a few more corners. It's narrow going, at first, but the passage does open up a little the farther you go.]

Wait, it could talk? Like... in gibberish or actual 'talk' talk? [sir, that's pretty spooky] But not being able to look at it, huh? Now that sounds like a pain to fight.

[Sonic is jogging behind Omen. For all that his personality seems larger than life, he is, as some may put it, a little guy. These small corridors don't actually bother him.

You know what does sort of bother him though?]

Not for nothing, but are we going at this pace because it's dangerous or...?

[He's gotta go fast--]

Uh...it was a little like yelling, in our head? Like it wanted us to look at it. But, um. We couldn't, so.

[Was it a trick? Omen isn't all that sure. He basically never wants to be looked at, so.]

Oh - I don't know. We're not even really going anywhere...?

[What's the rush, the tunnels aren't timing them.]

Well, that seems counter productive. [Sonic please...]

Hmm...

[a part of him is itching to go... but Omen has a good point about them not really going anywhere]

I guess we should head down and check if the water is all cleared up or not. The Torments don't look like they're acting any stranger than normal, so that will be a nice little tidbit to bring back.

Yeah, okay. If we wanna do that...

[He takes a left.]

Shouldn't be all that much longer. Even less if it is still flooded. [...] I am glad the Torments that came out of that thing are normal. I was worried it was gonna be like, a thousand small versions of it.

[Sonic does a little pirouette to double back and follow after Omen when he misses the abrupt turn]

Wow, could you imagine? That just sounds like it would be a huge mess to clean up... The regular swarms that came off that thing are annoying enough to run into.

[he says it all nonchalantly. Sonic knows he can fight them all off, no problem, but even he can recognize that running into an enemy when you take a corner is a jumpscare no one likes. It's cheap! It's unfair!! It's low effort even!!!]

Perfect! Nothing says getting it done like good ol' fashions team work!

Uh - yeah, yeah!

[Omen hasn't been part of a team for ages. He wasn't even really part of the team at that big fight, he just showed up sort of.....near the actual team.

As they walk, the air's starting to feel a little stickier. They haven't actually encountered any flooding yet, but Omen slows a bit.]

Smells like water down here.

[like a small animal (one might even say... a hedgehog), Sonic tilts his head up to sniff the air before nodding]

Yeah, it sorta does. I guess it hasn't completely cleared out yet.

[his ears perk up too, as if trying to listen for the sound of water. In the waking world, it probably wouldn't do much; last time he came through, the water was fairly still so many the Torments were avoiding it too?]

Kinda funny how we can smell it, since this is a dream... [a sudden laugh] Then again, everyone knows what water smells like. Something something the collective unconsciousness of the people.

[he raises both hands and does a little spooky gesture]

WooOOooo!!

Feeling up to go down further?

I don't know, I'm kinda used to it. I spend more time here than awake sometimes.

[Not so much anymore, but for years there, Bruno was practically in the Dream Sphere full-time. It's probably only the rats that kept him from just...stashing his body somewhere and staying forever.]

Yeah, sure. If the water's, uh, just gone down, maybe they haven't even made their way in yet.

[that admission actually causes Sonic to stop short, eyes wide with surprise (but without judgement? How did he manage that?)]

Wait, really? I usually hop in and out; this place is cool and all but there's just some things that can't be replicated, y'know.

You're not on the run from anything, are ya? Do you need help or anything??

[he is not using this as an excuse to delay running into water in these cramped tunnels, where his speed is a disadvantage and his mobility severely hampered. He is not, he is genuinely concerned!

... Okay, he's doing both, but his concern is real!!!]

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