Manuel was deep in sleep when the dreams began.

In his dream, he was standing tall and proud, like a true de la Rocha. Clinging onto his right leg was a rather idealized version of Alison Blair, gazing up at him adoringly with impossibly blue eyes.

Unfortunately for him, instead of the normal acts she would have normally started to perform instead she sank her teeth into the muscle of his leg.

"OW! What the _HELL_ was that all about?" he screamed at her, as she gently licked the blood from the bite wound.

"Oh, it's nothing." she purred. "Just a little blood, that's all. Can't you feel it? Blood and death and fear and pain. You know them well, don't you?" And Alison's mouth smiled impossibly wide, swallowing her own head and revealing the old Doctor from the mental hospital.

"Ah yes, young de la Rocha. We have such _grand_ plans for you, yes we do. Seeing as how today is a Darkwing Duck, I'm afraid we're going to have to Amanda you. Has to be done."

"I'm sorry, you're going to what? And today's a what?" said Manuel, back in the institutional greys and shackled to the bedpost.

"It's a dog-roach. And you're off to be Amanda'ed." said the Doctor, preparing a sixteen-foot syringe with his toes. "And there's not a damned thing you can do about it."

"Are you sure about that?" said the masked Spanish Avenger, standing tall and proud defending the rights of the nobility and the superior. "I think I can. And I WILL!"

He stretched out with his empathic power, preparing to paint the sky a lovely shade of lavender with blue-furred spots using only his spleen, when his brain exploded into mush.

--

The door opened, and the soldiers aimed their tazers at the slumbering Spaniard. Noting the wheelchair, they smiled at one another. One man moved to the wheelchair, while the other stretched out his hand to pick the comatose boy up and add him to the collection of hostages. When he turned the boy face-up, the hellish red glow coming from beneath his eyelids should have warned him, but right at that moment both he and his partner gazed blankly off into space.

"Not worth it." one muttered while the other just nodded. "Nothing important in here." said the other one in complete agreement.

"Come on, let's go. Next room will have something important in it. I just know it." said the first soldier as he turned to leave. The second one followed him, even remembering to close the door afterwords.

--

In his dream, Manuel looked around the kaleidoscopic room with a fearsome hate. "I really, really, really hate the number zero! I HATE IT! It keeps bothering me, with its roundness and its lack of value! IT NEEDS TO GO AWAY! NOW! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Fortunately, the blue-furred Number Zero morphed into a white coat with feet and red hair. "GraaaaaaaagH! Erin Go Braless! Quisatz Hadarach! Nucleotides! Peptic Acid! RIBOFLAVIN!". She then disappeared in a cloud of foul-smelling coffee.

Looking around the kaleidoscope, figures began to make themselves known. One was Manuel, but with grey saggy skin and a black cloud over his head. "Aieee! I burn!" said Manuel, then fell to the ground in a charred lump.

Another Manuel stepped out of the kaleidoscope, wearing ankle-length skirts and with his hair floating in a reddish brown streamer. She screamed something in French, picking at little pink bits in her hair, then looked at Manuel with a mixture of pity and sadness. "You should really talk to someone about how you feel." she told him, then faded away into a shimmering cloud of punctuation.

Another Manuel stepped out of the kaleidoscope, and promptly threw two bone-knives at his skull. "I'm ugly! I hate you all! I want love! I don't deserve it!" The knives slammed into Manuel's eyes, causing stars and stripes to flash across his vision.

Another Manuel stepped out of the kaleidoscope, then turned into a wolf. "Graaaah." said the Wolf, sounding faintly like the lab-coat with feet. "Do you believe in God?" she asked, before doing something Very Bad.

Another Manuel stepped out of the kaleidoscope, flexing his massive thews and picking his teeth with bullets. "YOU WILL ALL KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!" he screamed, before stepping back through the kaleidoscope in a flash of black armor.

Manuel dropped to his knees as the kaleidoscopic walls closed in further and further, with only one tiny little hole in the encroaching colors. Manuel dove for the hole, seeking solace and protection, but beyond the hole lay nothing but white dressed in black.

--