The Night Terror

The Night Terror is Alice's hero alter ego, a shapeshifting kaiju that she controls multiple times every night through her dreams.

Biology

Appearance

The Night Terror is entirely black in color, with no discernable features (including eyes) on its body. It has the ability to shapeshift, but it most often exists as a formless blob slightly taller and bulkier than the average human. It is capable of shrinking down to approximately the size of a cat and growing to a much larger size (up to 30 feet tall or more).

When it has limbs, it typically has two arms and two legs, or two legs and two wings, though it will occasionally have both arms and wings. It can also have a tail. Its larger forms often resemble a mythical creature such as a dragon or werewolf.

The Night Terror's body remains at room temperature, but this can change with its emotions. Feelings like love and anger change it to warm/hot, while discomfort and fear make it colder.

Abilities

Along with the ability to shapeshift, the Night Terror has the power to move across large distances by traveling through a shadow dimension, though this has some limitations. It can only reach one of three types of destination: a random location nearby, somewhere it can see clearly, or Cecil's location. This transportation isn't an instant teleport, and the time it takes to move through the shadows varies depending on the distance traveled. It can take several minutes to move across a continent, and space travel would be impossible as Alice's dream would end before the Terror ever reached its destination.

When shapeshifted into the optimal form for it, the Night Terror's bite force exceeds anything the GDA has recorded, and it is capable of causing damage to materials that the agency once thought were unbreakable. Its bite is its most powerful weapon, though it can form claws that could easily kill lesser targets as well.

The Night Terror can be defeated, but killing it for good is impossible as long as Alice is unharmed. If the Terror is sufficiently damaged, it will disappear for several minutes before reappearing again, and it will continue to return until Alice's dream ends.

Minor powers include good vision in darkness, flight when it has wings, superhuman reflexes (but not super speed), and the ability to see the contents of the White Rooms in the GDA due to its sight being separate from Alice's human eyes. It also doesn't need to breathe.

Weaknesses

The Night Terror only exists while Alice is dreaming, and though her powers also come with increased REM sleep compared to a normal adult human, use of the Terror is still unreliable.

Intelligence

The Night Terror's lack of intelligence is one of its greatest weaknesses, as without the part of Alice's brain responsible for critical thinking, it isn't much smarter than a (non-human) animal. It has been shown failing at tasks that a small child would easily get through, such as recognizing itself in a mirror and solving a block puzzle meant for toddlers.

Its memory is very poor, only storing events clearly for a few minutes before they're forgotten. It is capable of recalling who is a friend or foe, though it doesn't know much else. Excluding Cecil, it can't remember anyone's name, and it easily misunderstands people's words (though it's unlikely to listen to most orders unless they come from Cecil anyway).

Biography

Origin

The Night Terror first appears weeks after Omni-Man's attack on Chicago. The GDA attempts to capture it and later to kill it, failing every time. It remains confined to the small suburban area around Alice's home for several weeks before showing up in Washington, D.C. After Alice is relocated to a remote GDA facility, the Terror appears there that night, and it begins dismantling a server room out of boredom before being interruped by the Guardians of the Globe. It teleports to Cecil's location when it is trapped, attempting to find someone who can help it. The GDA control room is evacuated of all employees save Cecil, who remains behind to distract the Night Terror. It doesn't harm him and teleports back to its original location after misunderstanding his words to mean that he could get some rest if it left.

When the Terror appears the next night, Donald and a team of GDA soldiers are prepared to distract it with toys, though it doesn't find any of them interesting and only wants to see Cecil again. Donald's attempt to reassure it leads to him touching it and being attacked, suffering major bleeding on his hand. Cecil teleports to the facility and tells Donald to go stitch his wound while he remains behind and watches the Night Terror. Despite Cecil showing signs of exhaustion, he seems to trust that the Terror won't hurt him, so Donald leaves. He returns to find Cecil asleep in a chair with the Night Terror on his lap.

Testing

Cecil performs several tests on the Terror the night after, trying to see how well it obeys orders and how strong it truly is. It begins its first appearance that night in the facility where Alice is sleeping, and successfully follows behind Cecil when asked. It's reluctant to stay behind when he leaves, only managing to sit still when Cecil promises he's coming back. The next steps of the test take place at GDA headquarters, and both Cecil and the Terror teleport there. It is weighed and has a spectrometer used on it, though its weight fluctuates depending on what shape it chooses and the spectrometer returns no results about what it may be made of.

The test of its bite strength is what makes Cecil confident that the Night Terror will be a useful asset. It is given a handful of metal plates made from various materials, one of which is an extremely expensive and tough research project that the GDA attempted to make Viltrumite-proof. The Terror tries to bite through this plate first, and manages to leave a dent in it which should have been impossible. While Cecil and Donald are stunned by the results, it shreds the rest of the metal in the room with ease.

It succeeds in defeating a team of robotic enemies Cecil sets up, attacking those it's told to and follwing orders well. Cecil tries to get Donald to give the same orders, only for the Terror to ignore him. The final test of the night is for it to defend Cecil against a simulated attack by the robots, but once it sees that he's in danger, it flies into a rage and won't stop tearing its enemies apart until he shouts for it to stop. Its dream ends just afterwards.

Cecil is waiting for the Night Terror when Alice's next dream starts. He takes it to a remote island in the Pacific Ocean where the sun is still shining and there aren't any people for miles around. There, the Terror is allowed to fly free for as long as it wants, and it shapeshifts into a dragon to soar through the skies while Cecil rests.

Covert Operations

The next night has the Terror listening to Cecil through Alice's ears as he sits in her room while she sleeps. It runs a lap around the GDA facility, following his instructions on which way to go. Once it finishes, Cecil tries to teleport to Donald to talk to him, but he finds that his teleportation isn't working and immediately knows that Donald has something to do with it. Cecil sends the Terror to GDA headquarters and guides it through the hallways to find a specific area that the cameras won't show him. Once it breaks through the door to reach Donald, he gets a call from Cecil, who uses the Terror's presence both to prove its usefulness and as a threat against the ones at the GDA conspiring against him.

Unknown to Cecil, Donald isn't working against the Night Terror project, he's trying to get Alice and Cecil together. Alice knows this and is grateful to him, and the Terror also sees him as a friend. When Donald asks the Terror to sit, it obeys, and when he tells it to go back to Cecil, it leaves. It watches a stunned Cecil who didn't expect it to follow Donald's orders, and eventually he agrees to go along with whatever Donald is planning.

Changing Behavior

The Night Terror is introduced to Guardians of the Globe as an ally, but not after showing up at Cecil's side and giving him a hug from behind. Having it nuzzle against him makes him reconsider telling the Guardians about its true identity as Alice's dreams manifested, and he moves onto a demonstration of its power to show why it should be a friend now instead of a foe. They accept it reluctantly, and Cecil teleports directly back to GDA headquarters to have a talk with Donald. His assistant isn't expecting him so soon, and has no choice but to talk in a white room while the Terror tags along and gets distracted by top secret equipment it shouldn't be able to see. Cecil tries to ask Donald why the Night Terror is so physically affectionate that night, but the conversation doesn't get far before they both realize that the Terror can see perfectly in the white room and shouldn't be allowed to wander. Cecil grabs it and holds it while he says he wishes Alice wouldn't have to live with its memories, and it cries out and hides away from him. Donald is left to look after the Terror while Cecil goes to get some rest.

The Night Terror's next dream that night begins with it moving to Cecil's location (his bedroom) and seeing a threatening monster (its own reflection in his mirror). It attacks in an attempt to save Cecil's life and be a good hero, and he wakes to the sound of shattering glass and a confused Terror on his bedroom floor. He picks it up and holds it as Donald calls to inform him that the Terror vanished from the cameras, and he tells his assistant that he'll look after it. Cecil falls asleep with the Terror still in his room.

The Terror is called upon that same night for its first real mission, to kill a giant snake that appears in the Sonoran Desert just before Alice's last dream begins. Cecil sends it out to fight after promising a reward of anything it wants if it does its job. With Cecil's guidance on the battlefield, it manages to defeat its enemy and they both return to GDA headquarters. When Cecil mentions a reward for its effort, it rushes toward him and kisses him, a movement which is mistaken for an attack by one of his employees. The alarm in Alice's room is triggered, and it vanishes instantly.

Personality

The Night Terror is curious, easily distracted, and skittish. It tends to run if it encounters a human it doesn't know, but it will quickly resort to violence if it recognizes an enemy. Alice's thoughts during the day can enter its mind if they're repetitive enough, making her worries the most likely thing to get through to the Terror. Despite this, it still acts for what it believes to be self-protection, ignoring her logical thoughts that its "death" is temporary and far less consequential than a human's.

It does manage to listen when she worries about it being too affectionate towards Cecil, as she's more familiar with denying her feelings than being in a life-or-death scenario when she's awake. That still doesn't keep it from kissing him after a battle.

Interests

The Night Terror likes plushies (as Alice does) and can be distracted for a short time by simple toys. It enjoys flying and exploring nature, though the opportunities it has for such activities are limited. If it doesn't have anything to do, it is likely to try moving to Cecil's location.

Notes

• The Night Terror is usually drawn by the author with a visible mouth, even though the story describes the Terror as just a black void. Liberties can be taken with its appearance in art, including adding eyes.
• Its behavior, abilities, and appearance are all heavily based on the author's experience with their own dreams.
• The humanoid form of the Night Terror was originally planned to have six fingers on each hand (another reference to the author's dream self), but this design hasn't ever been implemented.
• The Night Terror uses it/its pronouns instead of she/her like Alice. At one point in A Dream Come True, its inner thoughts reference being a man or woman on occasion, but its pronouns never change in the story.

Gallery

More pictures can be found in the Gallery.