Chapter 5: Genesis
Emerging from the projector screen, the four sorcerers in training found themselves in a void of darkness.
There was no land, no water, no Earth. Just the black empty void of space.
"Woah! What is this place?" Goofy asked as they floated around as if they were made of feathers.
Donald looked like he was about to puke as his face turned green. "I don't know, but I don't think I like it."
"Guys! Look!" Mickey exclaimed, pointing ahead of them.
Floating over, the others were amazed at what they saw. Before them was a bright light in the center of the darkness. But the light was shaped more like a spinning disk with multiple tiny white dots that seemed to glow just as bright.
"Wow!" Oswald said in awe. "The Milky Way!"
"What's the Milky Way?" Donald asked.
"Is it made out of milk?" Goofy asked eagerly.
"Actually, the Milky Way is a galaxy that consists of stars, planets, nebulas, and other forms of matter. It's where our solar system is." Oswald explained, sounding a bit giddy. "The word 'galaxy' comes from the Greek word 'galaxias' which means 'milky'."
Mickey chuckled. "It's amazing sometimes how you know all this stuff, Ozzie."
Oswald shrugged. "Well, I tend to do a lot of stargazing and reading in my spare time. Guess it finally paid off."
"So is the moon really made of cheese?" Goofy asked.
Mickey, Oswald, and Donald couldn't help but laugh mirthfully at Goofy's misunderstanding of the cosmos.
Just then, the Warriors felt as if some sort of invisible force was pulling at them as they started to float closer and closer to a certain part of the galaxy, passing by several stars and planets that left them in awe at how beautiful they were.
"The wonders of the universe." Oswald smiled excitedly. "Here we are, floating in space, seeing things that others have only dreamed of!"
Mickey had a mouth open smile as he put his hand up, feeling his fingers brush through the clouds of a close by nebula as they floated by. "Incredible." He let out.
"Gwarsh, I've never seen so many stars in my life." Goofy said as he tried to reach for some of the stars.
"It's amazing." Donald grinned, floating on his back with his arms folded behind his head.
And so, things were quite like that for a while, the four of them floating through the beautiful cosmos.
That was, until several small comets suddenly zoomed past them, leaving a purple trail of dust behind them. Following the path of the comets, the group realized that they were heading towards a familiar planet with a moon.
"Is that… the Earth?" Mickey asked in surprise. It didn't look like the earth he knew. Instead of green and blue, the planet was covered in red, orange and grey like Mars.
"Oh, believe me, it is." Oswald confirmed. "But I don't think it's the planet we know now. At least, not yet."
Before the others could ask the rabbit what he meant, the four Warriors entered the planet's atmosphere as they descended through smokey clouds. Flashes of light briefly appeared almost like lightning before disappearing.
The smoke was thick as nothing but red appeared in their vision before they finally breached the clouds. Now, the young Warriors found themselves standing on the Earth's landscape billions of years ago.
The ground felt very warm, and yet it didn't burn them when their feet touched it.
The group of young sorcerers looked around in both shock and awe as volcanos covered the land as far as the eye could see. The sky was full of smoke and ash and the smell of brimstone as the fiery mountains erupted with lava and hot magma.
Mickey shivered. "Gosh, hard to believe our planet started out like this."
"Pretty much a lot of planets start off like this." Oswald said.
"So… now what?" Goofy asked. "We're here, but what is there to do?"
"Who knows?" Donald rebuffed. "And who cares for that matter? All we need to do is find a projector screen and we can get out of here, simple as that!" He placed his hands on his hips proudly.
"Assuming we can find one without burning alive." Oswald remarked while tampering with his remote. "Great, my remote isn't working." He sighed in frustration.
"What were you trying to do?" Goofy asked.
"Was trying to reroute my remote so it could track the unique signature of the screens, but it looks like it doesn't work here in the Dream Realm." Oswald explained.
"Then I guess we'll have to make the journey on foot." Mickey stated before marching forward. "C'mon fellas."
Suffice to say, nobody was comfortable about this as they trekked through the hellish environment. At Mickey's request, Donald used his new powers to create a special shield of fire around the group, protecting them mostly from the heat.
As they looked around, more of the volcanos went off, fire bursting out of the mountains. Something they noticed was how the volcanoes seemed to erupt in an almost rhythmic tone. As if they were following the tune of a song. It was almost harmonious, in a way.
Bubbles of lava popped all around them from geysers and splashed onto the shield. Donald flinched a bit before remembering the shield he had put up. "Never seen so many volcanoes in one place."
"I don't think any of us have." Mickey said, whipping some sweat off his brow. Even with the shield around them, the heat was almost unbearable, not to mention it was still rather hard to breathe since the air was so thick with smoke.
Just then, another volcano burst with flames as the group continued their trek, red smoke emerging from the tip of the mountain. The volcano then erupted in swift short beats, the lava and fire looking like it had merged with the wind in a sort of twister.
Very soon, the group came across a river of lava, bubbles growing, sizzling and popping in the orange flowing fire.
Looking closer, Oswald noticed the bubbles seemed to pop in a strange pattern, like they were supposed to follow it.
"Hey, guys. Check this out." He alerted the others.
Following the trail of lava bubbles, the Warriors felt the air around them growing hotter and hotter as the ashes and air were starting to pierce Donald's heat shield.
More volcanoes erupted as the ground began to shake beneath them.
The group could do nothing but watch in awe as the eruptions of all the volcanoes around them seemed to form the mother of all volcanoes, towering over the previous ones.
Mickey, Oswald, Donald, and Goofy were nearly swept off their feet as the ground shook beneath them. They looked up just in time to see the volcano explode in a fireball of heat and liquid magma which was quickly flowing down towards them like a raging river.
With a collective scream, the Warriors tried to run as fast as they could, but the lava was quickly catching up to them.
And just when it seemed like they were doomed, the group jumped off a large cliff and down into a body of water below, steam rising from the water as soon as the lava touched the rocks.
Breaching the water's surface, the Warriors could only look back up at the cliff that was now flowing with lava.
This test was going to be harder than they thought.