Originally, Zeki had Cain and the rest of the hunting group in a safe location for them to rest and act as evidence for his report.
Plans have changed, and now Cain and Leon were needed if they were going to have a chance at defeating the Corrupt One before it pushed the Dreamers back far enough to let the Abyss overpower Dream.
"Master, I have done as you said. The boy and Ghost are here."
Zeki turned around to greet his attendant and guests. His frown behind his drooping mask changed to a smile, and the clown's skin tightened to show his jolly face.
The two didn't pay much attention to the act.
They were more inclined to watch wide-eyed, staring at the 12-winged beast slaughtering Master after Master behind the clown.
Cain held his breath, 'We're losing....'
Roots and branches stretched and blocked Dreamers from teaming up, wires from below acted like venomous spikes that found themselves in ankles and arms, devouring their prey from the inside.
The truly frightening Masters were dealt with by a ghostly arm. The rest were simply devoured by bloody tendrils of dark red waves constantly being emitted from the gem in the creature's chest, turning them into Shades and even Corrupts.
It was the epitome of Horror and War, one against tens of thousands, or more accurately, tens of thousands against one.
"We don't know its weakness. I was hoping you two could make up for that lack of information."
Twiddling his thumbs, the Dream Master sent by the Dream Lord looked a bit pathetic, all things considered.
"This is madness! How could we know?! Leon's just a servant, and I...I'm just me. That bastard probably knew my weaknesses if anything!"
With such a somber response, Zeki's teeth instinctively chattered.
"W-Well t-this w-won't d-do! I-I p-promised L-Lord."
Like a robot, he slowly turned back to the battle and stopped moving like a statue.
Cain no longer knew if Zeki was just putting on an act or truly terrified. In his own exaggerated way.
Nudging Cain, Leon asked, "Are you sure you don't know anything? You can't possibly think that's the case."
"Well, it's not like I take note of everything....most of the time we were stuck in the same body. Even now we're just more of mental representations of each other being held together with the help of the Dream Realm."
Cain paused for a moment, 'If we're both not in our physical body, and these bodies are more of just a projection of our soul...'
He slapped his head, 'We share the same soul! There must be something tethering us, right? Otherwise, how could we both return to our body, we both need to be there!'
Cain quickly understood a weakness he and his other self both shared, "Leon, you're right! I know something!"
Zeki whipped around, his ears perked so high they stretched unrealistically, "Really, truly, you know a weakness!"
Tapping his forehead, Cain felt the shudder deep within his soul.
'This is it!'
"Yes, I do, the red half-moon on the creature's forehead! It's directly connected to our soul!"
"Your soul? You share a soul?" Such odd terminology threw the clown's head for a loop, "I won't ask, but if you share a...soul, you will also get hurt, right?"
Cain shrugged, "No clue, I only realized now. People usually only have themselves in a body, right? Mine so happens to need two parts to complete the set. Without the two, the body won't work, or at least it will half work before breaking down."
"I see."
Zeki ran his fingers through a newly grown beard as it detached from his face, hand still massaging the floating mass of white hairs.
At such a moment, the beast behind them once again let out a horrid roar that shook the City.
Around them, from the changed and warped structures of the City, dark shadows and Shades spawned. On the battlefield, an army of countless red and black spirits spewed out from the creature's red half-moon on its forehead.
Unlike how they usually looked, they were now far more terrifying and warped. Each ghastly ghost was dark red, plastered with black spots drenching its form like a virus.
It was an obvious show of Corruption from the horrors.
Cain could easily tell that their attack or 'blessing' even reached the soul the two Cains shared to some extent.
Thinking this, he couldn't help but shiver, but unlike his counterpart, he didn't know how he could enter their mindscape. It was hard to do in the Dream Realm as the Mindscape seemed to overlap with this place.
Thus it felt impossible to enter. Or at least he didn't find the right way to go about it.
The worsening scene didn't faze Zeki, "Well, this is a nasty development. You all deal with the little guys. I'll join the battle with the big one, should be up for it after that warm-up."
"What?! Are you kidding? Me fighting all these Shades?! I'm not even a Dream Soldier."
The clown laughed, "And? You fought lots before, right? Rex was telling me you had quite the exhausting battle."
"He's right," Leon added.
"B-But...."
Gilbert came out of his cave and began to try and nibble on his owner's brain. It appeared like he was trying to tell Zeki something.
"Oh fine, I'll help him."
Talking to himself, Zeki shooed off the goldfish and stared at Cain.
"I'll say this and say it once. To become a Dreamer is not about imagining something no one has imagined before; it's about imagining something that belongs to you and only you, something no one can take away.
"This is the way we walk, taking imagination and making it our own. It is not about uniqueness but making something wholly yours and under your control, even if it's a mere copy.
"It may sound odd, but to Dream is to imagine order. It only becomes chaos when Nightmares are allowed to intervene. Dreams have always been in relation to reality and the known, and like reality, everything is made of a certain law or order."
Zeki was going to add on, but seeing Cain whispering his words to himself, he just grinned and headed for the battlefield, taking a step off the edge and flying to the battle on a magic trumpet.
"What an odd man." Leon took in the baffling craziness of the banana-suited man riding a giant floating trumpet as he rode off into the distance like he was on a chariot of war.
"Enough of that! We have to deal with these pests!"
The Soldiers of the Dream Lord were already fighting the Shades that appeared from the dying Dream City.
"Making my own....making my own....making my own."
In a hushed tone, Cain continued to repeat Zeki's words over and over. Slowly his mind began to create something, over and over, Cain was drawing something deep from within his soul to imagine something entirely his own.
As he did, Leon and the others fought tersely against the sprouting wave of Nightmares.
It got to the point where Leon unleashed his personal army of Red Ghosts.
Eventually, at some point in the battle, Cain raised his hand, in a fist.
Slowly, a green light glowed more and more from the inside of the closed fist. It continued to brighten, soon illuminating even Cain's veins and bones.
Finally, he opened his palm, and inside was a small glowing light, a speck.
As soon as the light shot out, the light made a visible effect on the Shades; their movements slowed, and their attacks weakened.
They were quickly dealt with and killed.
Leon stared at the small little light, "What is that?"
Cain responded, "Hope. My Hope."