As he regained consciousness and opened his eyes, Steven slowly groaned and got up, only to realize he was somewhere very different from where he started this dream of. If he still was dreaming and on the Nightopia world, then he must've winded up in a completely different part of it. It was like a labyrinth, but made out of marble and with a soil of irregular rocks, and even though he couldn't know at the moment, he was in the middle left of the whole place.
"Oh no...I have to go back and find NiGHTS!", Steven slowly and quietly said to himself, realizing the situation he was stuck in. "I hope she is fine while I'm here...Hello! Is anybody here?"
His cry of help echoed on the marble walls, but nobody answered it at first. But then...
"Huh?...who said that?", a echoed voice from a girl came to Steven's ears, and it sounded extremely familiar to him.
"...Connie?", Steven quietly said to himself, recognizing the voice, before deciding to shout another time to call his friend. "It's me, Steven!"
"Steven?!", Connie's voice cried in surprise, after recognizing his voice. "Steven, it's me, Connie! I'm here in this place too!"
Guiding themselves through each other's voices, the two best friends met each other in a part of the labyrinth and hugged each other joyfully, happy to find each other in a dream world (or possibly multiple dream worlds) they had yet to know alot about.
"So you're here on Nightopia too?", Connie asked after the two best friends broke the hug.
"Yeah but...I wasn't exactly in this place.", Steven explained, frowning a little. "I have a friend who was attacked by a super-strong Nightmaren, and she needs my help!"
"I escaped from a high-ranked Nightmaren who was...flying after me because he was trying to stop me from finding my friend.", Connie explained.
"Wait...", both Steven and Connie realized with wide eyes a question that raised on both of their heads.
"How was the Nightmaren you met, Steven?", Connie asked, still wide eyed.
"He looked a awful lot like my friend, but with red and black clothes, a mask, and he was...not that nice.", Steven answered. "What about the one you met, Connie?"
"He is like my friend in the fact of being a jester, but he has no body and limbs, he uses cards and he's...pretty crazy.", Connie replied, shivering a little bit as she remembered about Jackle.
"So there's...two nightmares after each one of us?", Steven realized, with mild shock.
"I guess...after each one of us and our new friends.", Connie said, neither her or Steven aware that both of their new "friends" were actually the same, NiGHTS.
"Is there a way I can go back to my...Nightopia slash my part of Nightopia?", Steven asked, looking around at the ways of the labyrinth.
"Maybe, but let's go together. This does look like a place we can get lost easily.", Connie said, extending her hand to Steven who accepted it as the two friends began to explore the labyrinth.
The marble labyrinth was much more bigger than both Steven and Connie could expect, and infested with paths that took to dead ends. Above all, some Nightmarens of lower level began to appear in their path, and without NiGHTS help, they had to deal with them together...which was a bit easier than what they expected.
"Look!", Steven suddenly said, pointing to the wall of one of the paths, where drawings of glowing red spheres made a irregular pattern. "There's a pattern of red Ideya's drawn on the wall."
"It seems to try and guide us to somewhere...", Connie pointed out. "Let's see where it takes off." She continued, as she and Steven began to follow the drawings of red Ideya's.
Indeed, the path in the labyrinth drawn through red Ideya's on the walls brought them to a small door. The two friends collaborated together to open the door and looked up to what it had inside: a whole natural beach with a crystalline ocean on it's border and, beyond that, many little islands. The sunlight was strong on the area, and beautiful.
"Hey! It's the world I was in before!", Steven recognized the beach area with a smile.
"Really?", Connie gasped, amazed at the sun reflecting on the ocean of the beach. "It looks alot like Beach City, but full of islands!"
"Yeah!", Steven agreed, but a little frown began to grow on his face. "Well...looks like I have to go back and find my friend so I can find the rest of my Ideyas."
"Me too...", Connie agreed.
"See ya back in Beach City.", Steven said, his smile slowly coming back, as he stepped in his Nightopia world's sand.
"See ya too!", Connie said, her smile a bit bigger, as she slowly closed the door waving 'bye-bye', Steven doing the same.
Both Steven and Connie were pretty happy with the knowledge that each other were visiting Nightopia.