This story began while Keith himself was having a dream. A rather... personal dream, you could say, as he was hanging out with several scantily clad actresses (and Lita Mercado) in a lake, when things took a turn for the bizarre. For one thing, all of the swimming girls were chased off by some... thing. A big thing. Some type of cybernetic horror girl thing with big spiky treads for legs.

After this thing roughed him up for a minute or so, Keith woke up and, investigating what the heck had happened, found out that his sister, Teddy, was also having nightmares. He'd decided that she was either just having nightmares by herself (an odd coincidence), or that she was feeling more hostility towards Keith than she was letting on.

The trick was, the bizarre thingee that Teddy manifested in his dream as referred to Keith as Nightmask, which nobody had done before. This was why Keith was so confused, as he usually had to identify himself as such first, or people just called him 'Keith' if they knew him. Perhaps this was a shade of Doctor Kleinmann's attacks on Keith, or just simply psychology, one could never tell.

Keith definitely couldn't.

At any rate, the members of the Institute had a sort of football game against the local hospital interns that next day, after which Teddy showed a whole lot of hostility towards her brother. This helped Keith to decide what was ailing his little sister, if not how to help remedy the situation. Still thinking on it, Keith and company returned to the Institute only to find somebody waiting there for them.

Introducing himself as Joe Greyfox, the youth asked Doctor Ballad if he could help his father, as he'd taken a lot of 'natural sleeping herbs' and put himself out for over two days now. Ballad refused, thinking this a matter for simple (and immediate) medical treatment, and Joe wandered off, though not before Teddy offered to try and help herself.

Having felt useless of late, she just wanted to do something helpful and, seeing the opportunity, she offered. Of course, she only managed to do this after dodging Keith, who wanted to face Teddy about her rather... grumpy behavior during the day. After she managed this, she bailed out on the place, and nobody noticed that she was gone until much later that night.

Using his dream powers, Keith discovered that Teddy was asleep - and in the dreams of Joe Greyfox's father! She was having some sort of verbal argument with Joe's brother about medical treatment in the dream, when all was suddenly replaced by something calling itself Tarenyawajon, Sender of Dreams! This freaked Teddy out, of course, and woke her up suddenly.

Naturally, this had a disruptive effect on Keith, who'd been in Teddy's dream at the time. Once he'd recovered from this, he went out looking for Teddy, and found the house she'd run to in her dreams. Breaking in, Keith discovered the two Greyfox brothers arguing over their father's bed, with Teddy off to one side, crying. Naturally, this set Keith off... and how!

He started a fight with David (the other Greyfox son) thinking Teddy was being held here against her will, until she told him otherwise. After this, Keith offered to try and help the old man himself, and another brief scuffle ensued between the two Greyfox brothers. Joe won in the end, and Keith then managed to finally get to sleep - and into the comatose man's head.

There, he experienced the same dream that Teddy did, once again meeting up with this Tarenyawajon. This thing, a transformed version of David Greyfox, had Nightmask on the ropes, until a second Nightmask, Teddy herself, entered the dream and helped beat the monster back. Upon defeating this monster, Keith and Teddy woke up, and so did old man Greyfox!

Upon his revival, Charlie (the old man) accused his son David of poisoning him with herbs, at which point he pulled a gun, threatening to kill everybody in the room. Teddy, ignored by the now armed David, threw her wheelchair at the man, knocking him over the banister. This caused him to fall to his doom, as he'd broken his neck on impact.

Discussing this, the Remsen kids figured out that Charlie Greyfox must have been helping them win their battle, as they both managed to pull stunts in the dream that they'd never been able to before. However, this whole encounter did manage to show one thing: that Teddy herself also has the ability to enter the world of dreams, even if it isn't as powerful as Keith's...

Our story here began with Lita Mercado, who was giving Teddy quite a physical workout, when Keith came in to his exercise session kind of late. Ogling at her while he walked in, he managed to trip over a set of dumbbells. Thinking that he had too much energy, Lita set him down on a weight-lifting routine that left him totally exhausted, but not before she invited him and Teddy to dinner at her mom's house.

Journeying there later that night, Keith and Teddy almost got lost, but finally made their way to Adam Morgan, an older section of D.C. where Lita's family lived. Over dinner, the Remsen kids talked with Lita and her mother about various things, including Lita's little brother, an arrogant little punk that was rather like Keith. Just then, however, somebody shot out the Mercado family's front window.

When they decided there would be no more shots, everybody got up to see what was going on, when they found Frank, Lita's little brother, in a fight with several people. With that, Keith and Lita's father ran out to break the fight up, allowing the shooters to get away. They were apparently members of the 'Potomac Sharks', a gang Frank had just left days ago.

This, of course, was offered by Officer Sanchez, an undercover officer on anti-gang duty who was watching the whole thing. Of course, Frank wouldn't testify against his former pals in court, despite the fact that they just shot at his family. So, after the excitement wore off, everybody just went inside. Mind you, Lita had Keith hang around until Frank went to sleep.

She asked Keith to pop into his head to figure out what was going on there, and liking Lita a whole lot, Keith agreed to. Upon activating his Nightmask, Keith found himself landed in a truly bizarre space, full of shifting, illegible signs and other weird imagery. He managed to find Frank being held down by these tentacles issuing from nowhere, and Keith then set him free.

Frank ran for it at this point, and woke up shortly afterwards. Remembering what happened to him last time that happened, Keith jumped out of the dream as soon as he could, only to find that Frank's 'friends' had returned to get even with him. Lita called the cops while Keith stalled them some, only to find Frank running out to fight with them.

The cops didn't show up in time, of course, and Lita wound up getting stabbed for her trouble, though only in the arm. When those gangsters ran away, Keith, Teddy, and Frank took Lita to the hospital, though Keith figured out that Frank couldn't read on the way (which made sense, considering the freaky imagery and illegible signs Keith saw in the man's head).

At any rate, Frank cut out with Lita's car after that, looking for the goon that stabbed her, only Teddy was still in the car! Keith managed to jump on, if barely, in order to keep an eye on both of them, and helped to disarm the thug once Frank found him. Frank beat the guy to shreds, and might have killed him, but Keith brained him with the but of the thug's gun, knocking him cold.

Once he was out, Keith popped into his dreams again, helping him to deal with the fact that he can't read, and Frank resolved to help himself, at last. With that, he woke up, and told the cops what he knew about the jerks that shot at his house. Once that was all resolved, Frank started to learn how to read, though with Teddy's help, of course. In fact, the two even started dating...

He'd sensed the danger. He tried to get everybody he cared about away from the Institute. He convinced Doctor Ballad and his sister, Teddy, to go to New York City with him, so he could root out the source of the danger. Of course, Lita didn't go with them, because Keith didn't ask her; he thought that she'd gone out of town. As such, she was the first one to meet Justice.

Thinking him a common burglar, she fought with him until he blasted her with his sword of justice, vaporizing her instantly. Meanwhile, in New York City, Keith saw a face familiar to him, a face that he sensed was central to all this mess. Of course, Justice suddenly appeared, and while Keith was distracted, he blasted poor Doctor Ballad to ashes, and then looked upon poor Teddy.

In a panic, Keith scooped her up and ran off, trying to escape from the Justice Killer. Of course, he lost her in the subway after being trampled by people leaving the train itself, when Justice caught up with him. Fleeing, Keith managed to spot that familiar fellow hopping on the train, though he was too late to get in himself. At that, he wished he could don his Nightmask, like he did in his dreams.

Suddenly, he did, and managed to hop on the train, a sort of physical impossibility for a normal human. After riding on the rear of the train for a bit, Keith spotted that guy heading down a side tunnel, having apparently jumped off the train. Following, Keith met up with two hooded people, who told him to head to the transfer point of the subway, in order to find who he was looking for.

With that, of course, Justice caught up with him, and the two scuffled in the darkened tunnels under Manhattan island. Eventually, with Justice blasting away with his sword arm, the floor collapsed, and the two fell into a muck-filled tunnel below. Escaping from Justice again, Keith found that familiar kid, though he escaped Keith yet again upon being questioned about that Justice fellow.

Tired of following this guy, Keith decided to head to the transfer point, a junction of all the various subway tunnels under Manhattan, when he realized at last that he was in a dream. Here, he found poor Teddy, as well as several crossing trains that bore valuable tidbits about the past. For one thing, he saw that familiar fellow cringing in fear after that Justice fellow slew his brother, a drug dealer.

Then, he remembered that he'd been brought to help some comatose kid in the hospital with Doctor Ballad, and that he'd help free the fearful youth from his terror, a terror of being followed by this Justice Killer (since he'd already killed his brother). With that, however, Keith decided that he was in this youth's dream again, and managed to find him in the transfer point.

Upon interrogating him again, Keith realized that he was in his own dreams at this point, and the kid vanished. Soon after, those hooded fellows showed up again, only to reveal themselves as Keith's dead parents. Keith then discovered that this whole Justice manifestation (and the dream itself) was his guilt over surviving the attack on his parents rearing its ugly head again.

Finally knowing what was really going on, Keith managed to deal with that 'Justice' bogeyman that had been stalking him in his dreams, and got rid of it once and for all. Upon waking up, Keith then checked out everybody in the Institute, making sure that they were still alive; of course they were, but Keith was worried nonetheless. And, at long last, he faced his feelings towards his survival...

Or so he thought...