M.U. The Freshman Years
Chapter 14
That night, Oozma Kappa was walking towards the location of the first challenge of the Scare Games. Well... Not the entire frat. Chow was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, they wouldn't need him for the challenge. But Sulley had to wonder; where the hell was he?
Chow was asleep in his room, but his consciousness was in the center of the quad. Unlike his first dream, he was alone and there wasn't a soul for miles that he could sense.
"This isn't right. Something is wrong." Chow thought to himself as he tried to wake up.
"You won't wake up until I allow it." Joshua stated as he walked up to him.
Great... Just great. You take a nap for a minute after class and you get trapped in your dreams by an omnipotent asshole.
"Why can't I? My team needs me."
"Not really. This year, two teammates from each team have to sit out the first challenge. I decided to volunteer you." He informed his prisoner as he pulled out his phone.
"But why us? And why are you here this time?"
"Because I need you. Like I said the first time we met, I'm looking for someone with a certain level of imagination. I need to test you to see if you're even worth the effort."
"So what's the plan?"
"A little combat test. In dreams, your imagination is at its strongest. If you have what I seek, then this challenge should be a cake walk. Consider this your first Scare Game. The Toxicity Challenge."
Suddenly, the quad was surrounded by a force field and a group of weird Technicolor freak beasts stood on the other end. Some looked like frogs, some like wolves and there was one that looked like a bear, but they all had one thing in common. They all had certain parts of their body that were like living tattoos.
"These creatures are Noise. All you need to know for now is that if they touch you, it's gonna hurt like hell." He explained as he gave Chow 3 stylish-looking pins that you'd probably put on your shirt or hat.
"The fuck are these?"
"Your weapons. If you're who I'm looking for, you should have no problem using them."
"Hm... Ok." Chow studied the pins for a second to see what they could do.
One was red with a flame gracing the front of it. Another was blue with what looked like a giant shockwave on it. The last one was gray with a white glove in the center.
"You have 5 minutes to erase the noise. If you fail, you forfeit your right to live. No pressure."
"Ha... You're funny thinking that a life or death fight would shake me. You forget where I come from. Bring the noise!" Chow took his weapons and pinned them to his shirt.
A huge timer appeared above the dome and began to count down.
"Time to get to work..." Chow charged into the fight not knowing that these creatures would be his toughest opponents yet.
How the Oozmas got past the first challenge... Sulley would never understand.
Everyone, minus Henry because he stayed on the sidelines, was covered in huge boils from getting hit with urchins. If Jaws Theta Chi didn't cheat, they would've been royally screwed.
As they walked into the house, Squishy's mom walked up with a tube of cream that evaporated everyone's boils in seconds.
"Have you seen Chow?" Sulley asked her after everyone rubbed the ointment in and his vocal chords had cleared up.
"He hasn't come downstairs since he got back from class." She replied as she went back to the kitchen.
"Sullivan has a heart? I'm shocked." Mike gasped jokingly as Big Blue glared at him.
He rushed upstairs with the speed of a bullet to check on his pal. Call him what you will, but don't call him a bad friend.
Sulley walked into Chow's room and found him fast asleep with a note attached to the bed frame.
'To whom this may concern, I'm testing your friend here, but if Chow isn't awake by midnight, he's probably dead. Love, Joshua.'
The thing that stood out the most was that there were cuts and bruises littering his body.
"Henry! Get up here! It looks bad!" The bunny monster rushed upstairs and immediately saw what Sulley called him for.
Chow was collecting even more cuts and bruises as they watched his sleeping form cringe.
"What time is it?" Henry looked at his phone.
"About 10 minutes to midnight. Joshua... That bastard."
"Joshua... I think I heard that name in my dream last night."
"Wait... You did? Was Chow there arguing with a white furred monster?" Henry looked a bit panicked when he asked Sulley.
"Yeah, actually. How did you know?"
"That guy was Joshua and the Chow in that dream was the Chow that's lying on my bed right now. And Joshua is probably kicking his teeth in as we speak."
"Oh... Wait, really?!"
"We'll plan the wedding later. Right now, we have to hope Chow can get out safe."
The first 2 minutes were the worst moments of Chow's life.
He tried to fight them using hand-to-hand combat, but every time he made contact it felt like a knife pierced his skin, just as Joshua warned him about. And whenever he cringed in pain, they took the opportunity and slashed him up or punched the wind out of his lungs.
"Time to see if what Joshua said about these pins holds water." Chow concentrated on the fire pin and a small flame appeared in his paw.
"So the pins warp their power to my imagination. I guess someone's thinking big!"
Chow rounded all the Noise up using shockwaves from different directions, trapped them using a ring of fire, then dropped a flaming fist down on them, completely crushing them into dust. The timer stopped at about a minute.
"You really are the monster who I'm looking for. If only you'd help me instead of resist me, this would be so much easier." Joshua dismissed the force field and walked up to Chow.
"So are we done here? I have class in the morning and you did a number on my fur. I mean shit…"
"Yeah. I'll check up on you after the next round of the Games. And keep the pins. Have fun, Neku."
"Neku? Who's that?" Whoever that guy was, he must've been similar to Chow.
"S... Sorry. You just reminded me of someone I haven't seen in a while. Bye." He walked off and disappeared into thin air again.
Chow woke up a few seconds later to everyone in the house staring at him.
"Um... What's up, guys?" He hoped they weren't mad he slept in.