'Good riddance,'
One of the best aspects of lucid dreaming for Slinx was its realness. Every one of his senses was stimulated the way it would be in reality. If not for the alien lifeforms and peculiar landforms Slinx would have no way of distinguishing Dreamland from reality. This did not bother him at all. In fact, it could not be any better. Slinx was not born into an affluent family, yet his desire to travel would not settle for less. For each opportunity Slinx had to explore a new region in his quaint neighbourhood he would take it, from voluntary waste collection service to being a local tour guide for a day, he took every opportunity there was to route out every street and every corridor. Slinx thought this was the most natural thing to do, and was surprised when many of his classmates had no idea where the local post office was. It didn't matter if his town was old and half of the buildings were vacant, one should be proud of where they were born.
What did bother him though, was the perpetual downpour of rain he was experiencing. Having to drag himself through the pouring rain all soaked and shivering, the thought of home was able to provide Slinx with some warmth and comfort, he had finally found a small cave to take shelter.
'Why would anyone make rain a thing in Dreamland?' He thought as he rushed towards the cave.
Slinx rubbed the ring that he wore, its luminous blue light shining brightly without a hint of fading. Slinx tsked, his patience was fading.
What is he waiting for? Slinx thought.
Slinx took shelter in a small cave and dropped to his legs to rest. There was no need to consume food in Dreamland, but one would still find themselves fatigued after extended periods of movement.
Walder was reluctant to set a specific time and place to meet, he said there were too many factors that could change and it would be very easy for the UDA to track them down. Instead, Walder insisted that Slinx wait for his signal (which would be sent via the ring), and then start walking towards the meeting point. It didn't make much sense to Slinx, but through blind obedience and fear that Walder would call off the deal, Slinx kept his doubts to himself.
The message did eventually show up; Walder had decided to meet near Atlas Faire. Slinx did not know which way Atlas Faire was, but Walder was considerate enough to leave him with a general map and directions to head towards the theme park.
As Slinx squeezed through the damp sewers and narrow pipes, he couldn't help but feel anxious about the abnormal amount of time he was staying in Dreamland. This dream trip was already more than thrice the time compared to his previous journey.
'My anchor must be broken.' Slinx thought.
Waking up was something that came naturally for non-lucid dreamers. Lucid dreamers on the other hand would often require the assistance of an 'anchor' to pull them out of their dream state.
Slinx remembered asking Arven about this during their training sessions, it explained why Cavina was able to leave Dreamland without a ring.
'An 'anchor' usually comes in the form of a sound which triggers the lucid dreamer's body to pull out of their dream state, this could be the sound of an alarm clock, or a specific melody or word.' Arven explained.
'If I don't have an anchor, does it mean I won't wake up?' the horrifying thought sent shivers down Slinx's spine.
'You physically cannot enter lucid dreaming without an Anchor,' Arven explained. ' If you're here, it means you already have one, you just don't know what it is.'
That also explained why he was able to leave his dreams at all in the first place, Walder had never taught him how to use the ring to leave.
During their first encounter, Walder claimed to have already set his ring to automatically wake him up after a certain amount of time.
'Are you in a rush Slinx? I can help change your leaving settings on the ring if you need.' Walder said.
'Ah, no thanks. I was just worried that I would be stuck here.'
'There's absolutely nothing to worry about.' Walder said.
Slinx looked at the ring he was wearing. He regretted not asking Walder sooner about the ring's awakening function. He assumed it would be activated by the user's Ariki in some way, but he could not imagine how exactly it would work. Memories of Cavina leaving through a ray of light appeared, he tried to recall the process as vividly as he could as he concentrated Ariki on the ring, but nothing came about.
It did not take much longer for Walder to arrive. Styled in his usual worn-out robe and bushy hair, the old man walked slowly towards Slinx with powerful and confident steps.
'Did you fulfil your part of the deal, young man?'
Slinx carefully checked for the ring in his pocket, 'Yes.' He carefully held it in his palm as if it was a fragile hatchling.
Walder took the ring and held it in front of his eyes, He peered at the ring at every angle. For the next five minutes, Slinx stood in awkward silence as Walder inspected the ring from every possible direction. It reminded Slinx of the times when Hannah would take out her reading glasses and scrutinise every single line of text on the school notices before signing it (she said you never know what contract you might be signing yourself into).
When he was finally done, Walder cleared his throat and looked towards Slinx.
'Job well done young man, I did not expect you to complete this mission.'
'Well of course, I am a man of my word.' said Slinx, he felt his body shaking slightly, as he blurted out the words.
'And so it's your turn now, help me win Cavina's heart. That's the deal we made two months ago.'
'That was what I said,' Walder replied.
Walder stared at the ceiling for a moment, he directed his gaze at Slinx again.
'But I won't do that.'
A sudden jolt of pain pierced through Slinx's palms. In a split second, Slinx's body was suddenly entangled by heavy chains which slowly tightened their grasp. By the time Slinx realised what was happening, it was already too late. His ring was in Walder's hand and he saw a grin light up Walder's sinister face.
'Don't worry, I won't kill you. You aren't worth spending the Ariki on.' Walder said.
'Oh yeah, I never told you about Ariki, did I? But I assumed those guys from the UDA did teach you about it.'
Frightened but Furious, Slinx growled as he vigorously tried to break loose: 'Let me go you senile old fraud!'
Walder unleashed a roaring cackle that silenced Slinx's growl. 'Boy are you easy to manipulate! The ring stuff, the whole turn you into a better man crap… You are pathetic Slinx!'
Slinx suddenly found it hard to breathe, he could not tell if it was the chains tightening or the fact that he was hyperventilating. He had a hunch that Walder was not as respectable as he presented himself, but Slinx had let his infatuation with Cavina take the better of him.
'Are you telling me everything you told me is a lie? About having to wear the rings to lucid dream? What about getting all 9 rings and making the world a better place thing, is that a lie too?'
'Well, partially.' Walder said. 'The ring also awakens people's ability to lucid dream, but that was not the main reason I gave you the ring. The real goal was to have you activate the ring.' Walder held up the rings, ' As you may have noticed, each ring is a bit different with its colours and designs. That's because they unlock different potentials of a lucid dreamer, and when gathered together they could provide one with the power to ascend as a god.' Walder clenched his fists, emerging aura from them that covered his body; the ground below started to shatter, and giant human-sized centipedes crawled through the cracks. The dazzling giant crystal ball on the ceiling of Atlas Faire had suddenly turned dim, the dome structure was now engulfed in ominous glimmering green lighting, which was a stark contrast to the bright vibrant colours it normally had. Creatures that Slinx can only describe as hellspawns started to appear, all of these catastrophes in front of Slinx's eyes were seemingly the work of Walder Vixen.
Slinx's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He found himself trembling uncontrollably after witnessing the vast difference in power between himself and Walder, it was like David and Goliath.
'Slinx, I have been studying and tracking down these rings for more than two-thirds of my life. Through my research, I learnt that these rings can only grant the wearer unlimited power once they have been activated by a member of the respective guardian clan. Do you know how many years and people I had to kill to even get one of these things activated? I had little hope that you would be able to activate your clan's ring, given that you do not seem to show much potential. And I was unfortunately right, you were not able to activate the ring even after going through two months of training with the UDA. But you did bring me another ring, and miraculously activated it as well! I guess you do have some worth.'
'Wait, what clan? I don't get what you're saying!'
'Well you don't need to, you have served me well Slinx. Be grateful that I am sparing your life today.' Walder slowly strutted towards Slinx, 'Since you are unable to activate the ring by yourself, I shall take matters into my own hands. Slinx, from now on you will serve as my puppet, so please try to cooperate as much as you can to ensure a painless experience.'
Slinx's heart was about to burst out of his chest, his body struggled violently to break loose, he needed to buy himself time.
'I guess all that new era and advancing humanity talk was poppycock then. You know, I admired you when you told me your vision, I truly did.' Slinx said the sentence in the most provoking tone he could use, 'But now I see that I was wrong. Walder Vixen is not the great, bold, daring visionary as he claims to be, but just a pathetic, dishonourable, scum who bullies children to make himself feel important.'
Walder came to a halt, his eyes widened as he glared intensely into Slinx's eyes, and his muscles started twitching as his jaw clenched. Walder's eyes narrowed into a glare as he took a step closer, 'How dare you question my motives, child? That was one of the only things that I did not lie about. I wholeheartedly believe and strive to use these rings to better humanity, that part of my vision has never changed.'
'However, I have now come to realise that my initial plan was quite flawed. Entrusting peons with the incredible functions of lucid dreaming would be a risky and inconsiderate move that would undermine the potential of the rings to advance civilization.'
A frown crept across Walder's face, 'This change of mind was in fact due to Cavina, my endearing granddaughter that made you fall head over heels. I must applaud her for inheriting my genes for being intellectually gifted and alert, however, her resistance against my plans has proven the dangers that such rebellious and short-sighted individuals can cause to my great agenda.'
'I fabricated the lie that the rings were able to locate each other, this was to prevent you from rebelling. But in hindsight, this was an unnecessary precaution. You are neither as capable nor as vigilant as Cavina to ever think of handing me a fake ring.'
'That's right, but that also means you'll never succeed,' Slinx smiled, his plan has seemingly worked. The distraction was enough to make Walder go about a lengthy monologue and buy Slinx time. More importantly, with Walder distracted, the grip of the chains had loosened, and Slinx was now able to create wiggle room for his hands to break loose.
'Cavina will never lose to you.' Slinx said,
'Right now, you're just a boy.' It felt really good to say that back to Walder.
Walder's eyes popped, his fists tightened as his cheeks turned a furious red. With his powers, Walder lifted Slinx into the air.
'Enough!' Walder howled, 'You insolent brat! I see Cavina and you as overgrown babies! Slinx, I was planning to spare you the pain of torture, but I will not tolerate such slander from fools like you.' With that, Walder conjured a reaper's scythe and held it with his left hand.
'Drop your weapons now!' A group of helicopter-like drones crashed through the high ceiling of Atlas Faire, allowing a ray of light to shine through. The reverberating voice echoed within the arena as a figure dropped down from one of the drones and landed right between Walder and Slinx.
It was Max.
'Walder Vixen, under the authority of the UDA, I demand that you cast the spell of disarmament and immediately surrender!' Max turned back to stare at Slinx, there was anger in his eyes, but also a great deal of concern.
'The spell of disarmament is made for fools. You must be quite dim-witted if you think you can defeat me.' Walder's eyes started glowing green, his body was illuminating with the same mysterious aura.
'Specialisation'
'Close your eyes, Slinx!' Max exclaimed, Slinx immediately closed his eyes shut as he felt a blinding beam of light disperse.
'Advanced Counter art, huh? Interesting, it seems I have underestimated you.' Walder said.
'Not too shabby yourself.' Max replied, 'Deconstruct.' Instantly, the chains around Slinx broke down, and Slinx fell to the ground.
'I assume you are the one who activated the ring of technology then,' with his left hand still holding the scythe, Walder raised his right hand. Suddenly, cracks appeared from the ground, and an army of skeletons and corpses crawled out and lumbered towards Max and Slinx. The smell of rotten flesh lurked across the battlefield.
'Care to entertain this old man to a fight? My last opponent was not much of a challenge.' Walder grinned.
Pop!
Klank! Beep Boop!
Machine guns and mini tanks started to appear around Max. Colossal Robots that reminded Slinx of Gundams came for backup.
'Bring it on.' Max said calmly.
Heaps of rocks crashed towards Max like tiny asteroids. Max blocked the impact with a small barrier. Another set of boulders came plunging, and Max blocked it again. The boulders exploded into fragments after contacting the shield. The attacks came over and over again, Max blocked all the attacks by himself, and his robotic garrison remained idle as they awaited commands.
'Hahahahaha!' Walder laughed menacingly, 'What's wrong? I thought you were the cocky one in the UDA!'
'You're just a bit underwhelming, that's all.' Max said coldly, 'Are you done yet?'
Max raised his left arm, and with that, the roller coasters from the nearby rides derailed and raced down towards Walder as if pulled by gravity. Walder's undead army quickly formed a blockade in front of him, the coaster slammed into the pile of bones, and the impact caused a gigantic boom, Walder was sent flying into the air.
Max hopped onto one of the derailed coasters as it came charging towards the ground. The mobilised coaster was now a flying dragon that soared through the skies to hunt for prey. The mechanic dragon unleashed its wrath and widened its jaws as it charged at Walder. Walder quickly conjured a barrier to protect himself.
Crunch! The cyber dragon's razors pierced deeply into the sphere but did not break it completely, immediately Walder launched a counterstrike as he blasted a laser down the dragon's oesophagus. The damage dealt proved lethal as the dragon exploded into bits, causing both Walder and Max to be launched backwards by the impact.
Max swiftly landed on one of his drones, he conjured two laser guns and rapidly fired energy beams towards Walder, blitzing the stalls and structures beneath.
'Deconstruct!' Walder yelled. In an instant, The beams of light disintegrated into small particles of Ariki, entering Walder's body.
Max tsked, immediately he stopped firing his laser beams. He switched gears and conjured himself a burning blade, he charged furiously towards Walder who was now standing on top of one of the Ferris wheel cabins. Walder conjured his own blade to block the attack. Clang! The two blades clashed, making a screeching sound.
On the surface, Slinx found himself surrounded by headless skeletons who roamed the area. Occasionally, one would randomly slash their swords without a target. Slinx tried his best to avoid bumping into the skeletons, he conjured himself a small hammer just in case but knew that his best strategy was to just avoid any conflict.
'Why give your life to protect that pathetic boy, imbecile?' Walder taunted as he caught a glimpse of Slinx goofily dodging the skeletons. He went for a massive swing that forced Max to dodge. Walder lunged and slammed his blade towards Max's, the overwhelming force knocked Max back several meters.
'That is none of your business,' Max conjured another set of drones equipped with mini machine guns, the large amusement rides were mutating and transforming into cybernetic horrors armed with lethal weapons. 'Judging from the way you're fighting, I assume you are a mind-controller.'
'I'm surprised you didn't know that already, do they not tell you anything in the UDA?'
Walder clenched his teeth, dark clouds started to emerge with green lightning flashing nearby.
Down on the surface, the undead army had now grown heads and had now locked their gaze on Slinx. Some of them were granted wings, and a swarm of flying ghouls surrounded Max.
'You people took everything away from me.' Walder said. With that, his army of undead came charging towards Max. Max's army of drones quickly retaliated and started to fire back. The undead army made a horrifying shriek as they whammed their bony weapons into the metallic bodies of the cyborgs.
'Shit.' Slinx thought, these evolved skeletons were now semi-sentient and started aiming their attacks at him. He was outnumbered by one to a few hundred with only a tiny hammer in his hand. A blade came slashing towards him as Slinx blocked the attack with his mallet. Another came again from a different direction, and then another, and again and again.
Max was not doing so well either. Despite landing heavy hits and setting some ablaze, the ever-resurrecting skeletons relentlessly attacked and powered through Max's forces. Fewer and fewer drones were spawning and the undead army was quickly gaining the upper hand. The Gundam-like guardians were weighed down by the swarm of fiends that had lashed onto them; they came spiralling down to the ground and caused a fiery ball of explosion.
'Slinx, we're going to have to retreat for this one!' Max shouted, 'See that drop tower over there? I want you to get to the top as quickly as possible!'
Slinx felt Ariki depleting with every blow that he took, but his body jolted upon hearing the words. He saw the colossal drop tower in the distance, it was nothing less than twenty stories high. He did not have much stamina left, how would he bring himself up that thing while being attacked by zombies? He was a bit surprised that he was not already overwhelmed by the massive crowd of undead around him, some of them were actually moving away from him, they were walking towards the massive fireball that the robot guardian had caused.
'That's it! The undead were responding to heat!' That was what caused them to attack him in the first place.
Slinx had to create a fire, but he was finding it hard to imagine the exact structural composition of fire. Still, he knew it was the only way to make it out alive of this mayhem. He tried his best to recall any memories he had related to fire.
And it suddenly hit him. He remembered the time when he almost caused a fire during a chemistry lesson. He was instructed to get sulfur but had instead got phosphorus.
'Slinx! Put that down!' He was lucky the teacher stopped him before he opened the bottle, releasing the liquid into the air.
'Construct!' Slinx imagined the same exact bottle as it popped into existence several metres away. The bottle fell onto the ground and shattered, leaving the contents to come into contact with oxygen in the air.
'Boom!' Flames came roaring out of the glass. The skeletons quickly turned their heads as they charged towards the flames. Slinx took the opportunity to sprint towards the tower, and with all his might tried to imagine a very, very long ladder. He imagined himself climbing it and scrutinising every detail the ladder should have. His thoughts were getting clearer, and the ladder was taking form.
'I did it!' Slinx shouted. The ladder he created was just enough to let him climb up to the tower, and it even had springs on it that launched him up faster just like he wanted. He made it to the top in a matter of seconds.
'Yes!' Slinx exclaimed. But he should not have celebrated so soon, as he lost his balance and toppled down to the floor. Slinx was able to reduce the impact by conjuring a huge bean bag to catch him. But there was no more room for failure, his Ariki was almost depleted.
The heated battle between Walder and Max continued with Atlas Faire slowly crumbling and rides being destroyed left and right. Max had been forced to go on the defensive as Walder's unfallen army kept attacking and Max's drones slowly being shattered one after another.
'Max! I'm here!' Max nodded in response.
'I'm afraid you won't be able to leave that easily, my friend.' Walder's army started coming for Slinx. But Max was faster, still on the coaster he blasted his way through the fallen foes and grabbed Slinx firmly by the wrist.
'Basic Escape art!' Max yelled.
A ball-shaped barrier formed around Slinx and Max. It did not stop the skeletons from pushing their faces onto the barrier in hopes of cracking it. Multiple hits of lightning hit the barrier, but it did not budge.
'Aww, done already? What a shame.' Walder teased, 'Come, Dream with me.' Walder unleashed a powerful set of demonic hands that attempted to rip the barrier apart. A slight crack started to form. For the first time, Slinx saw a sense of fear in Max's expression.
'Impossible…' Max said, 'The basic escape art is a humanitarian defence tool… all schools were banned from developing a counter…'
'Well that's the thing about humans, right?' Walder chuckled, 'We're two-faced, cunning, power-craving monkeys.' Clap! Walder slammed his palms together, and the demonic hands crushed open the sphere like a nutcracker.
'Detach!' Max launched Slinx and himself of the grasp of the hands. Slinx shrieked in horror as they started freefalling. Max's hands lit up with aura, scrap metal left in the aftermath of the battle came hurdling towards them.
'Alter!' Max shouted, the scrap metal started to organise itself and merge into a new robot guardian, and the two of them fell into the cockpit (which had bean bags for chairs). The cockpit slammed shut as the combustion engines fired up, and the mecha accelerated through the hole in the ceiling, quickly reaching supersonic speeds in a matter of seconds. The undead army attempted to pursue, but the difference in speed quickly left them wandering without a target.
Walder laughed as Max and Slinx fled the scene.
'Interesting. I look forward to our next encounter, descendant of the technology clan.'
The mecha safely escorted the duo to the entrance of the UDA headquarters. Neither one of them said a word during the trip.
At the gates of the UDA. Everyone from the high council was waiting. As soon as they arrived, Slinx was put in handcuffs and restraining magic to prevent him from using Ariki.
'What is this, Max?' Slinx already had an inkling that this would happen, but part of him hoped that somehow Max would bail him out of this situation.
Max gave out a long, weary sigh. He shrugged and stared at Slinx with a face of disappointment. 'I don't know Slinx,'
'Karma, I guess.'