David was in the middle of an intense fist fight with two gentlemen outside one of the party's stage performance pieces. It was some sort of artistic dance that David thought was pretty good. Well, everything was good except that these two assholes kept interrupting with their obnoxiously loud behavior.

This was David's new hobby in this repeater dreamworld party. He picked fights with people that he didn't like. It was fun to beat the crap out of those aggravating, rude and obnoxious partygoers.

Earlier tonight he had managed to completely derail a woman who slapped a waitress for accidentally spilling a drink on her party dress. David had timed the assault just right. In a full run, he snatched a tray from a server and lit the lady up so hard that she went sliding across the floor. Now he wouldn't usually hit women but this bitch truthfully deserved it. This revenge attack was a success as he noticed a grin on the waitress's face as he ran by her. However, the attack wasn't really a display of a fighting skill, it was more like demonstrating proper escape planning. This type of attack was a tactic David called the 'hit and run'.

Using his newly developed evasion skills to the maximum, he had managed to dodge all the guards headed to the disturbance and sneak away to get the second and third people on his list for tonight. These two people happened to be the two idiots he was laying waste to right now.

A lot of the guards had been drawn to the previous incident nearby so he knew that he had an extra minute before he needed to bail out of this fight. Normally, he would just wait around for the guards and cause a massive brawl for his training purposes. He had been going nonstop at training in his dreamworld. By David's estimation, he had continuously lived through over 400 parties in his dreamworld. Tonight, he was just warming up with a few attacks for a later round with Atkins. He didn't want to get caught right away so he needed to bail on the scene before guards arrived.

With a kick to the kneecap, he managed to cripple up one of the two guys that he was currently fighting. A buzz came over the radio he had stolen from a guard earlier and David knew it was time to move on to the next fight. He hit the other guy square on the chin with his fist and ducked off into the large crowd that had gathered for the spectacle.

After a few evasive maneuvers and quick hike to the other side of the estate, David found an unattended spot in the garden to rest up and prepare. Tonight, he was going to fight Atkins in the time before Karine showed up.

He was really looking forward to the fight with Atkins tonight. David tried to do an assessment of his skills with a fight against Atkins every 20 parties or so. Of course, he had found around ten other really strong people at the party but he like to focus on Atkins for his own reasons.

At this point, he assumed that his nightmare had managed to pick up all the real details from the party that night. His guess was that the first fight with Atkins was actually real. Other than that realization, he had no idea of what was going on in the real world. Off of a few ideas, he could figure that he wasn't dead but was in some sort of unconscious state while reliving this dream over and over again. But being stuck in the repeating dream, he really didn't know what was going on in real life.

In his spare time in the dreamworld, David had been investigating what happened to cause this mess in the first place. In his investigations at the party, he had found Atkins setting a few stones down around the garden area where David had originally seen him and Karine. When he noticed that something was happening, David had instigated a fight with Atkins just to see if he would reveal some details on what these stones were. Luckily for David, Atkins liked to chat when he is beating the shit out of people.

The four magical stones that Atkins placed around were called mirror stones. They setup this illusion type magic field that blocked the events on the inside from the real world. Atkins made it sound like these magical things cost a good bit of money too. He also said that they would deter people from the outside from entering the area accidentally.

David still couldn't figure out how he had managed to enter the mirror originally. Maybe it had something to do with his dreamworld? He wasn't sure but the feeling when inside the mirror was similar to being in nightmarish dream.

Based on what he could figure out, it seemed to David that magic was something real in the world. He had managed to just cope with the situation of not knowing what sort of other magical stuff actually exists. He had even tried to research the issue by trying to start conversations with people that seemed important or visiting the library in the Carmine's house. He had no luck everywhere he tried to get some information.

Honestly, he began to think if he could have his own little dream world...why couldn't there be magic stuff. He had spent a full party contemplating the various possibilities of magical existences.

In the end, David had just figured it was best to continue on with his previous training regardless of his lack of understanding of the magic world that Atkins called The Other.

Tonight, David had decided that he was going to fight Atkins at the time just after he setup the mirror. He would have about thirty minutes of fighting before Karine showed up to talk with Atkins. In his last fight with Atkins, he had managed to come to a stalemate in the brawl until Atkins had pulled some weird skill out of nowhere.

David was going to go for the win tonight. Fighting Atkins was pretty hard. One good punch could end the fight. David had managed to mitigate his lack of strength with his ability to react quickly and improvise weapons.

Realizing it was time to start the fight, David stepped into Atkins' mirror. David couldn't help but chuckle at Atkins' surprise when he saw David appear in front of him. It never got old no mater how many times he had seen that look of surprise.

"Who are you?," Atkins questioned upon seeing David appear in the garden.

"The guy that is gonna kick your ass," David replied as he charged forward.

Atkins was really strong so David had to focus his efforts on speed and unexpected attacks. Running straight at Atkins, David knew this first dodge would set the tone of the fight. Atkins reacted like most fighters facing a head on threat. He threw a punch forward to stop David's advance.

Feeling the force of the punch coming, David moved slightly to the side of the punch while pulling a knife from his waistband. He kept his momentum going forward instead of backing off. With a quick thrust, the knife was fully imbedded in Atkins' side.

David had planned this first move in detail. In all the fights so far, he had realize one key to dealing with the stronger opponents in the dream: if he injured them as soon as possible, then they weren't as strong for the rest of the fight.

David had developed this strategy when he learned that he couldn't really get physically stronger in this dream. He could do strength training day after day and he always was back to his same strength the next time he relived the party.

Atkins let out a grunt as the knife impaled his side. David quickly rolled out of the way to give some distance between him and Atkins. The knife must have caught something important, like a lung, because Atkins was making a weird wheezing sound as he coughed out some blood.

"Great," David thought as he saw the damage and pulled out another knife that he had stashed away in his waistband. Time for the next attack.

The second attack wasn't as successful. Most of the knives that David could find at the party weren't super sharp, so he had to rely on stabbing attacks to really damage an opponent. This time Atkins had anticipated the stab and blocked David's thrust with his arm.

The knife went flying and David's arm was throbbing in pain. Luckily, David didn't get grabbed by Atkins and managed to escape back about 12 steps away to reestablish a good fighting distance. If Atkins managed to grab him, the fight was going to be over quickly and not in David's favor.

Atkins wasn't moving forward to attack quickly after the two disengaged.

"Looks like that first knife stab was pretty brutal," David thought while smiling and pulling his third and last knife out.

To his surprise, a look of pain flashed across Atkins' face and he fell to a knee as another cough brought a mouthful of blood to the pavers in the garden.

"You got me really good," Atkins said, "I'll remember that for next time."

Puzzled David stood there as he watched Atkins turn around and run away off into the darkness of the garden.

"Damn," David cursed internally," I really wanted to kill him."

"What a loser for running away," David said out loud before sitting down on the pavers to wait for Karine to show up. He was slightly disappointed at the fight's outcome but somewhat satisfied that he didn't lose for the first time.

After about a 25 minute wait, David could hear the clacking of shoes on the garden pavers. Standing up, he got ready to greet Karine. He had really missed working on the exhibit project with this woman and he also enjoyed seeing her dressed up for the party.

Sure enough, Karine came walking out from one of the garden areas into the open area where David had fought Atkins. A smile flashed on her face as she saw David standing there by himself. David smiles back then frowned as he felt a wave a dizziness hit him. He wasn't expecting something like this to happen.

"What's going on?," was David's last thought before disappearing from the dream.