AU: Dream Eater

Context: Being an eldritch entity, Sabre didn't die and have to visit the World Beyond when Nightmare tried to kill him! He just had to take a minute to refocus his true form (which is usually invisible to mortal beings) and reconstruct his body using his gathered energy. However, remaking his entire mortal shell in a mere few seconds spent a lot of that stored energy he had. Like... almost all of it.

Long story short, the eldritch gentle giant is hangry and Nightmare is extremely screwed.

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[3rd Person POV]

As they teleported into the Hub, Sabre took a deep breath as Orange excitedly jumped forward and let himself faceplant into the grass.

As Orange rambled, Sabre sat down on the gazebo steps, the happy relief that was on his face back at the village turning into an expression of slight annoyance and discomfort.

"-And I was so worried I was never gonna see this place again! But then you came back and got us and- Uh... You okay Sabre?" Orange asks, noticing his friend's visible shift in mood when he sat up and looked back at him. "Oh crud- did you get hurt?"

Sabre looks up, quickly giving an awkward smile and waving off the concern.

"Oh, nah, I'm okay. I'm not hurt, don't worry." He explains. "All good here."

"Then why are you upset?" Orange replies, getting up and joining Sabre on the stairs. "You just looked angry or something a second ago."

"...Y'know how it looked like Nightmare destroyed me?" Sabre starts.

"Yeah?"

"Well, he only destroyed my physical shell. Y'know, just the form I use to be able to interact with people and stuff. I got vaulted out of it when it was destroyed and was floating around, you just couldn't see me. I had to take a few minutes to recover because going through that is the ultimate form of whiplash, and then I had to use up a lot of the energy I had stored to remake my body so fast. Like... a lot of it."

"So you're just tired? Wait- Dream Eaters can't get tired." Orange says, quickly correcting himself. "So... what's wrong?"

Sabre looks at him and chuckles for a moment.

"...I think you're forgetting why Dream Eaters consume energy from dreams, bud." He says, smiling a little. "Remember? It's-"

"OH. Right. Right, it's your replacement for food." Orange exclaims. "You kind of need that energy to live- are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good. I can wait till tonight." Sabre replies. "Once night falls and everyone's asleep, I can go out into the Realm and gather more energy no problem. Just- if I start getting snappy, I'm sorry, I don't mean it. This just has a very similar effect as when a mortal person doesn't eat."

"Don't worry, I get it." Orange laughs. "You have someone specific you wanna visit?"

"Oh yeah, I'm gonna torture Nightmare."

"Wait what."

"He's never going to know the meaning of a restful night again."

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As Sabre watched, invisible in his true form, he was very happy with himself for doing this.

He watched from inside the corrupt false king's frightening dreams as chaos was wrought upon him. Monsters and beasts, feelings of helplessness and fear, traumatic memories and his own twisted conscience tormented him, constantly battering him like a monsoon of despair.

Sabre found watching the cycle of things that haunted his dreams attack him similar to watching a hamster run around in a hamster wheel, but much more entertaining. He's always been happy to give out a bit of karmic justice.

As Nightmare battled with his inner demons within his subconscious, Sabre consumed the energy that resulted from the experience. Fear, guilt, horror, anger, panic, distress, unease... he doesn't usually get this kind of energy from dreams, as he doesn't usually like causing nightmares, but it was nice to have it as a bit of a reward after what he went through that day.

Nightmare never did have another peaceful night after that.