AN: Sorry for the extended break, but life got a bit busy. I'll try to do a bit better in the coming weeks. I did remember to put the line in at the character change, at least.
8. Dreamdwellers
"Hey!" Pink and yellow flashed before Tails' eyes as Amy swung her hammer down between the two. NiGHTS recoiled, and darted off to spiral around the area, looking like an outraged wasp, except for the color. He's even got the stripes, thought Tails inanely. "Back off!" said the pink hedgehog warningly.
"You'll have to forgive NiGHTS," said the cool voice of Reala. Tails and Amy turned to see the black- and red-clothed Nightmaren leaning against a tree. "He does tend to get overexcited."
"Reala!" NiGHTS dove toward the new arrival. "Do you know what these idiots have done!?"
Reala transferred his cool glare to NiGHTS. "I'm sure you're about to tell me."
"They had the Dreamcaster and they threw it away! Tossed it into the ocean! Aarrgh!" NiGHTS darted away again.
Reala frowned thoughtfully, staring into the middle distance. Tails cleared his throat nervously and quavered, "Please, sir, what is the Dreamcaster?" He hadn't intended to quaver; he squared himself up and tried to look confident, like Sonic. "I mean, what does it do?" He managed to sound more certain, that time.
Reala gave him a long, measuring look before answering. "Exactly what it does, no one knows for certain. Normally, it - or they, the legends are contradictory on that point - holds power in the same manner that the dream chips do, although the Dreamcaster holds far more in spite of its smaller size. There's an old legend about a Dreamcaster being discharged and drained of energy; the end result, as you can see, is a transference of beings from Nightopia and Nightmare into the waking world. Only by recharging the Dreamcaster can the worlds be separated again."
"And I've gone and lost it," said Tails, wishing again that he'd somehow stopped Sonic from running off with the stone. There was a long pause, and the cub got the impression that Reala was trying to decide whether to say something else. He frowned up at the tall Nightmaren, trying to stare him down.
Reala frowned back, doing a rather more impressive job of it than Tails could. Then he shook his head slightly and said, "It probably doesn't matter that much anyway. We know that stone must be recharged, but the legends give no hint as to how such a thing can be accomplished."
"If we had it, we could probably figure it out," said the fox thoughtfully. "We've fixed the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald when they were broken or discharged. In fact, the Chaos Emeralds would probably be a good energy source, or do the legends suggest that the Dreamcaster needs a certain kind of energy?"
"And what's a dream chip?" added Amy.
"Dream chips are what the Nightopians use for energy. Their food, if you like," said NiGHTS, who had stopped buzzing around and was sitting cross-legged in midair. Glowering at Reala, he added, "and you can DE-energy Nightmarens with them, at least the lesser ones."
"I believe you mean 'de-energize', my dear sibling," purred Reala. "As NiGHTS says, the chips are a minor energy source, each fueled by the dreaming of one of the millions of sleepers from the waking world. As for the Dreamcaster, I've never heard that it was supposed to prefer one type of energy over another. Then again, there are only the dream energies and Master Wizeman's power where we come from." NiGHTS made a rude noise at Wizeman's name.
"What do Nightmarens eat?" asked Amy.
"Nightopians," answered Reala, imperturbably. NiGHTS growled and looked daggers at his counterpart. Literally. Reala casually caught one of the blades before it disappeared and began paring his nails. Amy and Tails edged back a few steps.
"I don't suppose you could use a dream chip to track the Dreamcaster?" offered Tails hopefully, trying to get the conversation back on track. "Or perhaps there's some sort of guardian for it?" A memory of Knuckles standing guard on the Master Emerald's shrine had prompted the latter question. Which suggested another idea as the two dream-jesters merely looked blank. "I wonder if Knuckles could track the Dreamcaster the way he could track the Master Emerald. Or use the Master Emerald to locate it, somehow. It showed him where the missing shards were, that time."
"But those were pieces of the Master Emerald itself," Amy reminded him. She sat on the ground, with her Hammer in her lap and her chin propped on her hands. NiGHTS, probably intentionally, was duplicating the pose three feet behind and two feet above her. "On the other hand, he does claim to be an expert treasure hunter. And," she raised her head and grinned wickedly at Tails, "we know who else makes the same claim." She stood up. "I'll talk to Rouge; you head on up to Angel Island and see if Knuckles can help us - or will help us. You two . . . ." she trailed off, looking uncertainly at Reala, and at NiGHTS who was now standing behind the other Nightmaren and imitating his pose. "Well, do something useful, okay?"
Knuckles, meanwhile, was standing in one of the chao gardens in Marble Gardens being perplexed. He had been jogging along one of his usual routes around Angel Island (he had six main patrols that enabled him to cover most of the island in a week, and several less-common routes that let him survey the rest of it) when his foot had struck something with a loud 'choip!'. Nothing he knew of on the Island made that sound, so he had stopped to locate whatever it was he had kicked, and found a strange, transparent blue sphere the size of an apple, with a blue light glowing in the center. He'd picked it up cautiously, but it appeared to be inert and harmless. A quick search of the area revealed no more of the things, so he'd taken it along as he continued his patrol, planning to ask Tikal or possibly Chaos about it if he saw them. As he entered the Marble Gardens region, however, he'd heard a commotion, partly outraged chao, partly . . . something else. Or somethings else; it sounded like a fair number of whatever they were, mingled with a similar crowd of chao. Clenching his fists so his trademark spikes stood out prominently, he'd charged into the fray . . . .
Only to find himself confronted with a mass argument between an assortment of chao on one side of a garden, and a collection of bald, cone-headed creatures that were only slightly larger on the other. The two sides weren't actually fighting, they were just yelling at each other, and now that he could hear them clearly, the echidna realized that the chao were more indignant than alarmed at the . . . invasion. Although chao babble didn't translate neatly at all, the gist of that side of the argument was 'What are you doing here? How dare you crash in uninvited!' and similar sentiments. As for the other side, in their blue and maroon velvet suits, he couldn't understand them at all. In his confusion he accidently dropped the blue sphere he'd found, and at the chirp it made as it hit the ground, one of the 'invaders' scuttled across to snatch the globe up. Immediately it vanished, and the halo around the creatures pointed cranium brightened from orange to yellow as it flew back to the rest of its group.
Now he suddenly had everyone's attention, and the chao ran over to gather around his knees, the several Flying chao in the group collecting behind him at shoulder level. The tone of their cries now shifted to 'You're in trouble now!' The echidna wasn't exactly certain what to do about the coneheads, though. They didn't seem particularly dangerous, nor did they look at all like fighters. And while Knuckles was not at all opposed to fighting a variety of foes - singly or en masse - for sport or good reason, these velvet-clad creatures didn't seem to be either. "Who are you? And why have you come to Angel Island?" he said finally.
Silence fell as both sides stopped chattering at once. Knuckles could feel the chao's questioning looks - they were clearly disappointed that he wasn't running the interlopers off. The aforesaid interlopers, on the other hand, merely looked puzzled.
"You don't understand me, do you?" he asked resignedly. I might have known. If these things had appeared to Sonic, they'd speak a sensible language, but since it's just me, they don't understand a word I say.
There was a sudden stir on the other side of the chao garden, and the strangers shuffled aside as a much larger one came out of the stand of fruit trees. Although otherwise identical to the rest, this individual was as large as Knuckles, and wore a crown and trailing robe as well as a velvet suit and halo. It floated forward without actually using the translucent wings on its back, similar to how the chao 'flew' . The pointed head tipped to one side and regarded the echidna eye to eye.
And somewhere in the back of Knuckles' head, the elder echidna who trained him in his dreams said, "These are Nightopians. They do not know why they are here, or where 'here' is. But they are no threat to you or the chao."
Knuckles spun around, looking futilely for the ancestral echidna. "I thought you only . . . appeared . . . in dreams!" There was no sign of the ancient in the flesh, although Knuckles could still see him out of the corner of his eye, superimposed over the landscape.
"I do, and I am. The Nightopians are creatures of dreams, and therefore the King 'Pian can only communicate through them." The image of Uaxactun drifted forward some, to where Knuckles could see him more clearly out of his left eye. The old warrior looked solid enough, but if Knuckles closed that eye, he saw the warrior against the darkened lid, and no scarred echidna in the garden. Blinking irritably, he flopped down on a long-fallen column.
"So I'm dreaming and awake at the same time?" Knuckles didn't trust this at all. If this weird conehead king was making him dream, then it was messing with his mind, and the echidna didn't care for that all. Bad enough that he tended to be inexperienced (he preferred that term to 'gullible') enough that Eggman had tricked him several times; the thought that someone could get actually into his brain directly, instead of through words or pictures, was worse by far. "And he's pretending to be you in my head? Why doesn't he be himself?"
There was a pause. "Not exactly. He . . . asks for an image that you are inclined to listen to, and your subconscious selected me. You would not, I hope, be inclined to listen to Dr. Eggman again, for instance. But the Nightopians do not speak with words any more than the chao do, and you are long since accustomed to reading their intentions. The 'Pians can no more make you do anything than the chao can. Essentially the King broadcasts his thoughts and your brain is translating them through me."
Knuckles considered this carefully. He didn't entirely understand it, but he was used to that. Tails was always talking about things the echidna didn't understand, and as for Sonic, well, Knuckle might be capable of understanding what the hedgehog chattered about, but much of the time it was simply too far outside his frame of reference. Shadow was actually easier for Knuckles to talk to, because although their backgrounds were different they had been similarly isolated. And both were now thrust into the confusion of the world below, whether they liked it or not. Which had nothing to do with the problem at hand. He looked at the Nightopians again. They don't seem particularly dangerous, he decided. They haven't offered to hurt anyone - he'd picked that much up from the chao - and given that the chao were all hollering at them it's no wonder they were yelling back. And the Master Emerald's shrine is on the far side of the island from here. "What do they want?" he asked finally. "Are they planning to stay here?"
There was another pause as the King rotated slowly clockwise, his feet drifting to the left and upwards and his head moving right and down, like some sort of pinwheel. This made no apparent difference to his crown, which stayed firmly on his head, or his robe, which remained draped from his neck toward his feet. The massive 'Pian produced an insect net out of thin air and waved it around, for no reason that Knuckles could tell. The image of Uaxactun might as well have been a wax image, for it remained totally motionless. Then abruptly it came back to life. "They would like to return to Nightopia, but since they have no idea how they came here, they have no idea how to get back. What they need immediately are more dream chips," Uaxactun held up one of the glowing, blue globes in his spike-knuckled hand, "and a place to gather. The king can call them all here."
"You mean there are more of them?" Perhaps the Master Emerald wasn't as safe as he thought!
His dream guide picked up the thought - or maybe predicted it; Uaxactun had been the first Guardian, after Chaos had destroyed Pachacamac's empire and sent Angel Island skyward. "There is no threat to the King Stone. These creatures have no interest in waking world objects, merely those that are of the realm of dreams. But they need a place to be safe from the Nightmarens while they wait for knights."
"Knights? Like the knights of King Arthur?" Once he'd made contact with the outside world, Knuckles had become a voracious reader. Amy and Tails were generous with books they'd finished with or thought he might like, which meant he had a rather odd collection of martial, romantic and history books. King Arthur fit all three categories, to greater or lesser degree, and Knuckles had always fancied himself as Galahad.
The avatar froze again, then shook his head. "Not knights," – an image of armored humans on horseback galloped across the sky above him, and vanished as a pink and purple figure swooped across in front of them – "NiGHTS. The one who turned his back on his master to defend the Nightopians."
If Knuckles hadn't already been sitting down, he would have gone down with a thump. He recognized the flying figure. He'd hunted all over Casinopolis for fragments of the Master Emerald when Chaos had been released, and Sonic had dragged him back there several times, displaying a strange fondness for the pinball game that used this creature as its mascot. Oooooookay. I have a bunch of bald, cone-headed creatures from a dreamworld that eat glowing blue spheres and need a safe place to wait for a pinball mascot to rescue them and take them home. And Sonic wonders why I find his world so confusing? 'Guard the Master Emerald from anyone who might steal it' is a whole lot simpler. The red echidna sighed and combed a hand through his dreadlock spines. Finally he slid off the column to kneel among the chao. "Look," he said quietly, "the Nightopians are lost and need a place to wait. Can you," he pointed at an adult flying-type (which, come to think of it, bore a certain resemblance to NiGHTS in its color and twin horns), "guide the King 'Pian and his, um, subjects, to Mushroom Hill? The rest of you, spread out and look for those round blue things, and take them to Mushroom Hill, too. That's what the Nightopians eat, so that will keep them out of your gardens and from stealing your fruits. And if you see any other Nightopians, head them that way as well." The chao cooed at each other, then conveyed agreement. Several adults herded the infants and juveniles away to one of the other gardens, while the rest marched purposefully off to look for blue spheres. The purple flying chao glided up to the King - who deigned to turn right side up again - and then flew off in the direction of the mushroom jungle, followed by the whole crew of Nightopians. Uaxactun vanished. Knuckles rubbed his eyes and decided that he'd done enough patrolling for the day. Climbing the closest big tree, he started gliding back to the shrine.
He had to stop twice, to send small bands of Nightopians on their way to Mushroom Hill under the care of a chao guide, and made a brief detour when he spotted a heap of the dream chips glowing in the underbrush, long enough to call some more chao to start ferrying the spheres to the hill as well. Finally, though, he arrived at the shrine and hauled himself up to steps to the top.
The Master Emerald spun safely on its altar, but the massive gem was clearly agitated. Deep inside the green glow flared and shifted, and light flashed across the facets. Knuckles obediently moved forward to peer into the closest one. There was an impression of darkness and danger, and what appeared to be a swirl of disembodied hands. That facet spun slowly past and the next one showed a dark, cloaked figure towering over Angel Island's central volcano. Knuckles looked at a third, and saw a hand again, barely discernable against the darkness. Suddenly an eye flicked open in the palm, seeming to emit light like a spotlight. Involuntarily, the echidna jumped back, certain that it had seen him. But the eye closed again and the hand - he thought, it was hard to tell in the darkness around it - drifted out of the facet's viewpoint. But he got the distinct impression that it was searching for something, a particular item, along with the general malevolence. "What is it? What is it looking for?"
The response was nothing he'd expected. The facet flashed green, cleared, and displayed a stream packed full of fish. So full of fish, in fact, that some were being lifted clear of the water. "Golden salmon? That monstrous creature is looking for a fish dinner?"
He got the distinct impression that the gem was laughing at him. He remembered that the salmon spawned in Mystic Ruins. "Okay," he sighed, "I'll go down and talk to Big. If you want a fish caught, he's the one to talk to."