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Darya found herself floating in the ocean. She wasn't panicked. She felt quit calm. The salty waves buoyed her, jostling slightly this way or that, but never threatening to tip her over from her position on her back. The lines on her skin where the water stopped were oddly electrified, tingling with hyper-sensitive attention. For a while she just floated, allowing herself to be carried wherever the currents decided to go, feeling with her powers the endless depths below and around her. Her perception stretched seemingly forever, and she could “feel” the countless myriad forms of marine life swimming around, pushing the water around them and giving her a sense of pressure that let her know where they were. She knew, as her perception spread, that the awareness of her own body was disappearing, and she felt oddly okay with that. And then her water sense touched upon something massive, deep below her, moving fast towards the surface. Her awareness recoiled back into her body suddenly, and she let out a sharp gasp, taking the first breath she had in more than a few minutes, it felt like.

Rising from the water next to her, so smoothly as to not cause a ripple, was a gigantic serpent, easily the size of a skyscraper. A second followed the first, and then more, until she was surrounded. She though of the hydra from Greek mythology, but that felt wrong. And then it spoke, using all nine mouths at once. The voice was gentle, feminine, but echoed with power.

“At last,” the great beast spoke, and Darya knew it was Tiamat. “Even if it is in dreaming, you finally see me.”

“Is this real?” Darya asked. The goddess laughed.

“No more so than you make it. I am you, and you are me. I am that which you hold back. You released me but for a fraction of a moment in the bank, but now that you have, here in your subconscious dreaming we can speak, which may prove useful, even if you don't remember most of it.”

Darya floated, and thought. She knew this sort of thing happened, the mind creating shapes and figures to more easily relate thoughts and images, though she never imagined it would be so vivid and realistic. The form and setting all made sense now, though.

“So, if we're speaking, that means you, or my power I suppose, 'wants' something.”

“Indeed! I enjoy being used! Much like a muscle, it feels [i]good[/i] to be used, to exercise. But now that you've had a taste, you must realise that your current setting is very limiting. The planet is covered by seventy percent of what you can control, and you sit in a dry and landlocked area. If you are to learn to use me effectively, you must move away from the family that is scared of consequences, the friends you worry could discover you. You must fight against evil, since that is the direction you wished me to form in. You must find more water.”

“It is weird, hearing you speak.”

The great creature's many heads laughed in unison, and the dream faded from Darya's mind, though the laughter remained. She gained true consciousness to find herself in a hospital bed, her arm bandaged and in a sling. The pleasantly warm feel of a cotton hospital gown and the comforting weight of the blanket made her realise that she had been de-masked, and she sat up straight, only to find herself extremely dizzy, and also that her face was covered by her rousari, wrapped so that her face was concealed. The laughter stopped, nad several people leaned over her. She recognised her uncle Yousef, and one of the police officers that she had seen at the bank, a Latino man with broad features. The third face she didn't recognise at all for a moment before her mind swapped out some missing parts and realised that Rocky was there.

“Ahhhh,” said Yousef. “You must not move to quickly, Tiamat. You have lost a lot of blood, although they tell me that the bullet went through cleanly and you will be fine in a few weeks.”

[color=aquamarine]“Urgh”[/color] was all the reply she could muster.

“Ha!” said Rocky. She still couldn't tell why he looked so odd. “I remember my first good solid wound. It's a doozy, going from untouchable badass with super powers to realizin' you're still human.”

It seemed that Rocky and the officer were again consumed in some swapping of war stories. Yousef took this opportunity to lean down and whisper to his niece, “No one except I knows your identity here, though if this Rock Man is honest, he does for different reasons. The officer has stayed with you the entire time to make sure your identity stayed secret, and has been anxiously awaiting your awakening. He has only left when I came to remove your mask and put your rousari on.”

“Thank you, Yousef,” she replied, sitting up again, although this time slowly. “How are you explaining why you are here, then?”

“Easily enough. I am your manager, obviously. A sort of talent agent.”

Darya laughed, but cut it short and winced as her arm throbbed painfully. A nurse chose that time to come in and noticed she was awake. “Just one second, hon, I'll get the doctor!”

Rocky shrugged. “well, kid, now that you're up and about...Well, as well as you can be, I gotta head out. Broadway needs me back at base to deal with somethin'.”

Darya was about to ask if he was okay, but only managed to wave with her good arm before he stepped out of the door, narrowly avoiding crushing the doctor as she came in. 

“Hi, I'm Doctor Ramirez, I am your attending surgeon.” She glanced over a clipboard while walking over to the side of the bed no currently occupied by Yousef. “Looks like we'll be able to get you out of here in just a few more hours, actually. Bullet barely did any damage, a clean through-shot just inside the silhouette. Stitching looks fine according to the last nurse visit, and you're very healthy, so everything should be fine within a week, and tip-top in another two, probably.”

The doctor looked over her glasses sternly. “That does [i]not[/i], however, mean go gallivanting around heroing everywhere, okay? Take it [i]easy[/i]. You lost a good bit of blood, and tearing open the stitching could make it much worse than it has to be. While as a physician I can't say preventing the harm of others is bad, [i]don't[/i] get yourself killed doing so, okay?”

Darya nodded sheepishly under her rousari, glad that it hid her blushing.

“Alright. I'll go get you discharge papers.” Her eyes shifted over to Yousef. “Are you driving her home?”

With Yousef's nod, Doctor Ramirez left without another word. The policeman stepped up to where she had been standing and smiled at Darya.

“Well,” he said, “I've got my own professional opinion about what a good job you did in the bank, but the official line is...” He checked a notepad he pulled halfway out of his breast pocket. “Let's see. 'While APD commends the valor and tenacity of the hero, we strongly encourage any other heroes to wait for the profesionals to arrive and do their jobs before attempting potentially dangerous vigilante actions. Today we were lucky that the incident ended before anyone was seriously injured. Next time we might not be.'” He rolled his eyes. “What a load of shit. They're just pissed you made us look bad.”

He handed her a business card that named him Sergeant Roberto Garcia. “I'm personally okay with not standing around as long as a hostage situation takes, and you managed to do it with only one shot fired on either side. Also less paperwork when you guys do it. Call me if you ever need a hand, okay? Everyone at the station thinks you're pretty much the greatest right now.”

[hr]

Several hours later, Darya was home, arm still slung. They had taken a winding course back, and Yousef had actually dropped her off to be picked up by one of the aunts a few moments later. Apparently the entire family was very paranoid right now, both for exposure of Darya's civilian identity and in case the bank robbers had friends. At this point, she couldn't even muster the will to protest. She was still woozy from the injury and the painkillers they had given her, but she was also wide awake, lying in her bed. 

The fear of discovery, the working with the FBI (who had been strangely absent in this case, considering she was fairly certain bank robberies were in their jurisdiction), and hero work in general, had all wound her a little tight, and she recalled some of her conversation in her dream. Her dream-self was right, really. If she was to be a hero, and if her family was to remain safe, she would have to leave Albuquerque, and working on the strike force to eliminate the terrorist group in some other location would be a perfect opportunity.

These thoughts continued to roll around, along with half-baked plans and dreams about what the ocean might be like, until at last sleep came and took her back into the dreamscapes, this time far more relaxed and silly, and she was soundly out until morning.