Dreams into Nightmares

By Atreyu452

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the character used in this fanfic besides Bentley and Smith. The characters, ideas, and concepts all belong to Capcom, may they not sue me for borrowing them.

Ijuuin Enzan was dreaming. He was dreaming about floating in space. He couldn’t see anything, and it took him some time to realize it was because his eyes were closed. He took a moment to berate his own stupidity before he came to his next realization—his eyes were closed because he couldn’t open them.

Was he dreaming? At first he assumed he was, but now that he was more alert, it didn’t feel like he was dreaming anymore. Still, he couldn’t command his eyes to open.

What happened to me? Enzan wondered, his thoughts surprisingly sluggish in coming and hard to form. Why do I feel this way? Where… where am I?

Something had happened, he knew. Something very important. It nagged him at the back of his mind. He had been somewhere, doing something… but what had it been? And what did it have to do with what was happening now?

He tried harder to remember, putting all his willpower in his efforts. He was almost there, almost… there.

-- -- --

Enzan eyed the glowing machinery. Buttons and lights, which seemed to serve no purpose other than to be eye-catchers, flickered on and off, making the tall, large cylinder resemble a Christmas tree more than the expensive piece of hardware it was. IPC, his father’s company, had invested a lot of money into this project, and this was all the two scientists had to show for it?

Enzan let his gaze scan the machine again. He was tempted to ask what it did, but that would spoil the cool, professional image he was projecting.

“Show me,” he said simply.

The man sitting in front of the computer screen made a nervous sound. His name was Smith, according to the clip-on nametag he wore. Smith was a short man with very little hair on the top of his round head. He wore thick, square-shaped glasses, which magnified his eyes. Enzan figured his age to be mid-forties, but the magnifying effect of the glasses threw off his calculations. That irritated Enzan, his inability to place Smith’s age without asking. His irritation would not bide well for the nervous man.

“Well,” Smith started, pushing his glasses closer to his face for the fourth time in the last minute (another habit which irritated Enzan; he made another mental strike against the foreigner). “You see, Mr. Ijuuin, it’s only experimental—”

“My company has invested a lot of money into your project, Mr. Smith, and you have nothing to show for it?” Enzan interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “I find that… disappointing.”

“But all our other tests so far have shown it to be a complete success!” another man cried, stepping out from behind the machine. Enzan was startled by the man—he had assumed he was alone with Smith—yet he managed to hide it. However, he couldn’t hide his surprise at the man’s physical appearance. He wore loose jeans and a brightly colored Jawaiian t-shirt. His unwashed hair hung around his face in greasy strings, and he had a messy goatee. His clip-on nametag read “Bentley.” Bentley’s unprofessional, sloppy manner instantly put Smith up a few notches in Enzan’s book.

Speaking of Smith… Enzan turned to see the man giving Bentley a look of utter horror. Obviously the other man’s presence had not been part of the plan.

Smith seemed to notice Enzan’s attention, for he hurriedly spoke up. “But Bentley, what about the—”

“It works perfectly fine,” Bentley interrupted, running a hand through his greasy hair. Enzan half expected him to tack on the word “dube” or whatever it was those foreigners who wore that style of clothing said. Unlike Smith, Bentley looked to be in his 20s—and proud of it, judging by his appearance.

“Does it?” Enzan said skeptically. “And you are?”

“Joe Bentley, the creator of the Dreammaster,” Bentley said proudly.

So that was what the mechanical Christmas tree was called. Enzan made a mental note to have someone in Marketing come up with a better name—if the thing worked and if it was marketable.

“Now, you must remember, the Dreammaster is temperamental,” Bentley said, shaking a finger like he was scolding a naughty child. “However, it works like a charm.”

“I have a busy schedule I must keep, Mr. Bentley,” Enzan said sharply. “Either you tell me what this thing actually does, or I leave.”

To emphasize his point, he turned as if to go.

“Wait!” Bentley and Smith cried as one. The two exchanged looks before Smith added pleadingly, “at least let us show you!”

And that was when Enzan made one of the biggest mistakes of his life. He paused.

-- -- --

That was what had happened. Those foolish computer morons had convinced him to try out their machine. And—making the stupidest mistake of his life—he did. But why did he do it in the first place? What convinced him to trust those incompetent fools?

Blues should have warned him. Blues did warn him, he remembered now. He just didn’t listen. Why didn’t he listen? He should have listened…

-- -- --

“Enzan-sama, are you sure about this?” asked quietly. Enzan glanced down at his PET as the navi continued. “They do not seem trustworthy.”

Enzan looked at the machine, the Dream-whatever-you-call-it. “All I’m doing is seeing if their product works. It’s up to my father to see what happens next. If I can prove their incompetence now, they’ll never work in this field again.”

It was a true statement; to lose the confidence of the powerful IPC company was the touch of death in the computer product world. Enzan’s cold, unblinking gaze never wavered as he turned from the machine to look at the two men. He had seen it happen personally; someone slipped up, or tried to do something they did not have the skills to do. His father was ruthless in routing out those people. Most of those discredited by IPC were arrogant, overconfident people who thought the idea of a twelve-year-old as a company’s vice president laughable; Enzan could never quite muster up pity for them when they got their dues.

Smith was conscious of Enzan’s gaze once again and had broken out in a nervous sweat. Bentley didn’t look quite as cocky as he double-checked the controls; he too, apparently, had heard of IPC’s reputation for ruining cocky inventors.

“It’ll work,” Bentley said quickly. “The Dreammaster is the ultimate virtual reality machine. One flip of the switch, and anyone inside the capsule is whirled off to their world of choosing.”

“We shall see,” Enzan said skeptically.

“Enzan-sama, don’t do it,” Blues said. “I don’t like this.”

Enzan frowned at the navi’s words—it was uncharacteristic for Blues to voice his opinion, especially if it disagreed with Enzan’s decisions. “It will be fine,” he said a bit harshly. The navi made no other protest, and Enzan forgot his words of warning. “All right, Mr. Bentley. Show me what this thing can do.”

-- -- --

Enzan would have groaned if he could. Against his better judgment and Blues’ warnings, he had landed himself in this mess. And now he was… where was he anyway?

“Rockman?”

No, it couldn’t be. That voice… not him. How…?

“Rockman, are you there?”

Wait a second, who was he calling Rockman? Unless… unless…

“Rockman!”

Oh God no. It just could not be. Enzan slowly opened his eyes to see the distorted, humongous face of Hikari Netto staring down at him.

What he should have done was to stay calm and figure a few things out before he reacted. Instead he panicked. Enzan opened his mouth to say something, anything; probably something piercing and cruel which would make that cheerful expression on Netto’s face deflate like a balloon. What came out was, “Good morning, Netto-kun.”

Enzan’s eyes widened with shock after he said those words, and he had to resist the strong urge to clamp his hands over his mouth in horror.

Netto frowned. “It’s late in the afternoon, Rockman,” he said. “You’ve been surfing the Internet while I was working on my schoolwork.” He shot a guilty look at a pile of manga sitting on his math book.

“I was?” This time Enzan managed to say what he meant to say, but it wasn’t his voice that said it. It was too high-pitched and cheerful to be his voice.

“Yes,” Netto replied. His confused look suddenly turned mischievous. “Or maybe you can’t remember because you were with Roll?” Netto asked teasingly. “Maybe that’s why you’re confused.”

You son of a— was what Enzan was thinking. What came out was: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Netto-kun.”

“Sure you don’t,” Netto said knowingly. Enzan felt like punching his smug guts out.

What’s going on here? Enzan thought frantically. What happened to me?

He looked around wildly, grateful to have control of his limbs, if not his mouth. He raised his hand absentmindedly—

And froze. His hand was blue. He looked down at his chest, finding the symbol he knew he would find.

Somehow, someway, Ijuuin Enzan was now .

Author’s Notes: This is a fanfic that I’ve owed Marisa for a loooong time, before I went to boot camp. Since it’s near her birthday, I decided to stamp “birthday fic” to it. My apologizes to the similarities it has with my other fanfic Hikari Enzan. It was her idea, not mine. Honest. Stop giving me that look.

“Dube” was written that way for a reason… Enzan isn’t the greatest on Ameropian slang.

I’m splitting it up into parts, because the segments I had written were not quite long enough to be chapters and were written to be separated, so “parts” they shall be.