Eighteen years ago
...
Six in the evening.
The sun had just begun to set. Not that it could be seen through all the dark clouds anyway.
The hovering transport vehicle traveled slowly and steadily across the rocky landscape. With the retirement of wheeled vehicles decades ago, such rough terrain was much less of a problem.
General Stratos Spheros sat in the back of the transport with the other men he gathered for this mission. He stood up.
"To recap our directives," he began, "we have finally located the enemy base. We will strike with almost all the force we can against any opposition. Any questions?" Silence. The general sat back down.
Stratos pondered silently to himself. Finally, this five-year struggle would come to an end. He reminisced on the events that led up to this terrible war. His brother, Tropos, had suddenly betrayed him and everyone close to him one day out of the blue, changing his name to Traditorus. The family never really found out exactly why this happened, but Stratos had a suspicion that his brother was silently treated as a pariah by the rest.
His thoughts were cut off by the transport stopping at its destination. The doors in the back opened up and every soldier occupying it poured out instantly. Every soldier except Stratos.
He took a minute to think back on everything once more. His allies in the war. His unarmed civilian friends. The Manningtons, Zaccary and Sunny. Their infant son, Pacster.
The green general quickly followed after his comrades. Other soldiers emerged from the surrounding forest, clad in bush disguises and green camouflage. Arriving on an armored hover scooter (so to speak) was Stratos' close friend, the brilliant inventor Radian Cumference. "Last battle of the war, eh?" He asked the general. Stratos simply nodded.
...
General Traditorus sat in his command room in silent anger. He reminisced on the events that led up to this war. How he was always treated so horribly by his parents, even if they didn't know it. How when he reached adulthood, he abandoned his home and took to the outskirts of Pacopolis. The day he discovered the ancient writings of an evil wizard. The day that led him on the true path of evil.
Most recently, his "loyal" servant Ector botched his infiltration mission and was forced to give up vital secrets, including the location of the base. As an unfortunate result, this five-year struggle would come to an end.
The would-be mole was in a room in the back of the base, chained to the wall as a form of punishment.
After several minutes of pondering, Traditorus got up from his chair and pushed a button on the adjacent wall. In front of him, a hidden door opened, revealing a rather big suit of powered armor. If he was gonna lose the war, then he was gonna lose it in style.
...
The resistance soldiers stood in front of the base's entrance, weapons poised. General Stratos was the closest, ready to take on his brother once and for all.
Everyone expected enemy troopers to pop out of every nook and cranny immediately. Instead, they were met with an ominous thumping noise that got louder and louder with each thump.
Traditorus burst through the front doors like it was paper with his armor. Everyone else present stood frozen in shock. "It ends here and now, brother!" the wicked general bellowed.
...
Eighteen years later
...
"That, everyone, was the last thing Traditorus said to his brother before losing the war, amusingly enough!"
Ms. Irma Globular of Maze University was giving a history lesson to her class. "The odds were against the rebels," she continued, "but our soon-to-be president had the upper hand!" She pressed the button on her remote to move to the presentation's next slide. "Shortly after the conclusion of the war, everyone in the enemy faction was put on trial. Every single of them were found guilty and subsequently punished."
A hand in the crowd quickly raised. "Yes, Pacster?" the teacher replied.
The eighteen-year-old Pacster began his response. "I know what happened to Traditorus and the others. They were turned into ghosts!" Immediately after, most of his classmates started laughing, especially the blue bully Skeebo. "Of course the lemonhead believes in ghosts!" he exclaimed, pointing and cackling at Pac.
"Settle down, class!" ordered Ms. Globular. "Pacster, you can tell us stories some other time. Otherwise, there will be no distractions during my lessons."
Just then, the clock reached 11:30. The lunch bell rang. Pac slowly got up from his seat in sadness while everyone else ran out of the classroom, a few still snickering at him.
...
Pac trudged through the hallway to the cafeteria, looking down in gloom.
His two friends, the tall red Spiral and the bespectacled pink Cylindria, Appeared to accompany him on his way. "Hey, buddy," Spiral began, patting Pac on the back, "don't let that mean old Skeebo bring you down!" Cylindria added, "yeah, even if we don't see things the way you do, we still have your back!" Pac's frown flipped upward. "Thanks, guys."
He started dashing the way there, much to the annoyance of Skeebo. "Look at him go!" shouted Spiral. Skeebo just crossed his arms and grunted in anger.
...
At the cafeteria, Pacster left his backpack on the spot he had chosen to sit while he went to the lunch line for his food. "Three slices of pizza, a cherry, and fruit juice, please!" he told the lunch lady. When he came back, however, he was met with a nasty surprise. His backpack was missing!
"Looking for something, dandelion?" Skeebo stood behind, holding Pac's backpack proudly like it was a diploma. "Give that back, Skeebo!" Pac responded, his temper rising. "I would," Skeebo said, "if you admit that ghosts aren't real!" Pac lifted his tray upward and the food slid into his mouth, swallowing it all in one gulp. "Try me!"
Spiral and Cyli ran to their friend's side. "I wouldn't do that, bro." said Spiral, restraining him by the arm to keep him from making any moves. Cyli stepped forward. "You heard him, Skeebo!" she exclaimed, pointing toward the bully. Skeebo simply laughed and ran off.
Pac couldn't take it anymore. He broke free of Spiral's arm restraint and took off after Skeebo.
...
The chase for Pac's backpack first made it to the hallways, which were still busy with other students. Pac and Skeebo ran through the cramped crowds, hitting many others along the way. One of the hall monitors blew into their whistle. "No running in the halls!" An empty order, so to speak. Ms. Globular, who was carrying a stack of papers to the lounge room, ended up with said papers all over the floor. "You two are going to the dean for this!"
The seemingly endless running continued to the entrance of the building. Spiral and Cyli attempted to catch up to no avail, stopping at the front doors. "They're not going where I think they're going, are they?" Spiral asked.
...
Pac stopped outside the front of the building. His eyes darted left. His eyes darted right. Skeebo was nowhere to be found. Then, he heard whistling from near the tennis court. It was Skeebo, still holding the backpack. "Over here, lemondrop!" Pac's anger flared up again. He snarled and dashed toward the bully, arms outstretched.
In the span of a few seconds, Pac leaped forward. In the span of a few seconds, Skeebo tossed the backpack upward. In the span of a few seconds, the backpack landed deep into Maze 256, the hedge maze that gave this university its name.
Pac tackled Skeebo, ready to knock the chompers out of him. "Hey, it was just a joke, man!" Skeebo "assured", "get off of me!" Pac raised his fist and was just about to strike before Spiral pulled him back again. "Joke?" furiously asked Pac, "you call stealing my backpack and throwing it over there a 'joke'?!" Spiral and Cyli restrained him once more.
Just then, Ms. Globular arrived with the dean of administration. "You are most certainly due for punishment!" she announced. "That means you, Skeebo," Cyli began, "and you too… Pac…" her voice started to trail off. It appeared as if Pac had vanished into thin air, the only clue as to what happened being the revolving door handles to the hedge maze still spinning.
Of note, next to the entrance to the maze was a warning recommending not to enter it alone.
...
Lord Traditorus sat in his throne room in boredom. He reminisced on the events that led up to his current situation. Yet, in spite of that, he made it his after-lifetime goal to escape this treacherous place deep underground.
He made himself at home in this castle that so happened to have been constructed before his arrival. Whoever owned it previously is unknown, but he didn't care.
The Netherworld itself was vast, but it was sealed entirely within a glass globe that was completely and utterly impenetrable, even to ghosts. At one end of the globe, and by extension the sky, was the sealed gateway to the surface. Every once in a while, Traditorus would try his hardest to break through the seal. And every time, he would fail. He knew that he would never make it. But to him, it never hurt to try.
His butler, Ecto (formerly Ector), hovered into the room, carrying a platter of live slugs. "Your slug meal as requested, m'lord." he announced. The ghost lord did not hesitate to respond. "Good! Now fetch me my remote! I can't eat without something to watch!" The spectral butler did as ordered.
In spite of being deep underground, the reception for the television feed was of surprisingly good quality, courtesy of a satellite dish built by the Netherworld's top scientist. He had it set to the local (well, local for Pacopolis) news channel, number 765.
At the moment, there was a special broadcast being reported. President Stratos Spheros was giving a speech commemorating the eighteenth year since the end of the war, and by extension, the twenty-third year since it began. "That day," he began, "we were given a blessing." Traditorus groaned, his resentment of his brother showing again. The president continued, "it seemed like all was lost, but in the end, we had the upper hand. I wish I could've seen what my brother planned and acted beforehand, but there is no way of changing the past." Traditorus screamed, "change this, mama's boy!" as he changed the channel.
...
Six in the evening.
The sun had just begun to set. Skeebo was returning back to his dorm room after he finished serving his four hour sentence in the university's detention room.
He peered outside his dorm room window, which overlooked Maze 256. He remembered how Pac was still in there, searching for his lost backpack. He then looked over to his bed and got an idea. A spooky idea. A rotten idea.
...
Skeebo and his cronies stood at the entrance of the maze, all wearing bedsheets and pretending to be ghosts. "Let's give that lemon ball the fright of his life!" the blue bully announced. Of course, Spiral and Cyli had followed them there and watched, disapprovingly. Yet they knew that there was no way of changing Skeebo's mind. He was dead set on finding Pac and scaring him to death.
...
As he was watching his favorite ghost opera, Traditorus continued to eat his platter of slugs while sipping on a cup of slime. Suddenly, one of his bearded guard ghosts phased in through one of the walls.
"Your Ghostliness! Sir! Lord Traditorus!" the guard exclaimed, almost running out of breath. The ghost lord nearly choked on one of his slugs in surprise, but managed to spit it back out. "Ugh! What is it?!" he inquired. The guard replied, "Lightning! A lightning strike! Just outside!" Traditorus choked on a slug again, this time swallowing it. Considering he was a ghost, however, it was little more than a minor inconvenience as it passed through his ectoplasm.
...
The guard ghost led his lord outside to a high balcony. True to his word, there was lightning in the sky. Not a new sight to any of the ghosts, but most definitely new to the Netherworld. Strangely, it was shooting upward, rather than downward.
Traditorus floated in place, mouth agape in shock. "What caused this?! Where is it coming from?!" he asked the guard. "That's the thing - we have no clue!" "Well, do something! Anything!"
Suddenly, one such lightning strike hit the very top of the sky, and thus the glass globe. In particular, it hit the sealed gateway to the surface of Pac-World.
Traditorus' face shifted from confusion to glee. He grinned with his sharp fangs and arched his eyebrows.
...
Meanwhile, in another section of the Netherworld, a good distance away from the castle, a group of four ghosts relaxed and bathed in a slime pool. The ghosts - one red, one pink, one blue, and one orange - were a bit younger than most of the others and as such, acted more independent from them, for the most part.
The orange one, the largest of the group and a tad "pokey", worriedly looked upward. "W-w-what was that up there just now?!" he asked.
The pink one, "speedy" with her wit, took a sip of her slime drink before replying, "it's lightning, silly. Haven't you ever seen it before?"
The blue one, "bashful" in the way that he "bashed" others from time to time, responded with "given how long we've been here, it might as well be never!"
The red one, the self-proclaimed leader and a bit of a "shadow" in his movements, saw the sudden horde of ghosts flying upward after what seemed like the final lightning strike. "I don't know, guys," he began, "I feel like something's up!"
...
Pac had been going through Maze 256 for hours. Two and a half, in fact. Finally, after all that searching, he found his backpack, conveniently (so to speak) located in the heart of the maze. Suddenly, he heard voices. "Pacster!" "Pac!" "Where are ya, lemonhead?" Familiar voices - especially that last one.
On the other side of the maze, Spiral and Cyli stopped in their tracks, glaring angrily at Skeebo (who had been pressured to take off his bedsheet and leave his posse behind by the other two). "Hey," the blue jock responded, "I was only trying to help!" Nonetheless, the three continued their trek.
As Pac was making his way through, he checked his watch. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed, "8:50! That's-"
...
"-Ten minutes before we strike!"
The army of ghosts were eager to rush through the unsealed gateway and attack the surface. Yet, for some reason, Traditorus demanded that they wait until nine o'clock. "Why?" one of the ghosts asked, "what's up with that?" The ghost lord cackled. "Because it's the perfect time," he responded, "and because I said so! Now, stay put!" The ghost who previously asked ignored the command and flew upward. He was met with a fireball from his superior, his ectoplasm disintegrating and leaving his bare eyeballs behind. "Or that will happen!"
...
The strange rumbling only motivated Pac to keep running further. "Spiral! Cyli!" he called into the distance. He was met with reassuring calls from his friends (and Skeebo), and they seemed to be getting louder.
Skeebo looked at his watch and chuckled. "Ha," he began, "no way he'll make it before curfew!"
...
"No way you'll get out before I say so!" Traditorus yelled, pushing away another ghost who wanted a head start.
Meanwhile, those four ghosts from before reached the horde. "This is gonna be fantastic!" the red one said, rubbing his hands, er, tendrils together. Whatever was going on, they were definitely eager to partake in it (save for the orange one).
...
The clock was ticking. 8:55! Pac ran as fast as he could. He couldn't bear the punishment of missing curfew. Every minute, every second felt like an eternity, yet at the same time the exact opposite.
Pac checked his watch once more. Only a few seconds left!
"Five-"
...
"-Four-"
...
"-Three-"
...
"-Two-"
...
"-One!"
...
"Yes!" / "Yes!"
...
For Pac, it was a miracle. He finally reunited with his friends (and Skeebo). Never mind that it was already nine. "Yo, bro," Spiral started, "we gotta get back to the dorms until someone sees us!"
...
For Traditorus, it was a miracle. That he managed to hold off his minions before it reached nine, that is. "My legions," he began, "we shall begin our invasion and subsequent conquering of the surface!"
...
Pac, Spiral, Cyli, and Skeebo were making their way back to the entrance of the maze. Suddenly, the rumbling started again, being loud enough to reach even where they were standing. They looked back to the source of the rumble. From the center of the maze, where Pac had been just minutes before, a pillar of light shot upward. The rumbling intensified and grew louder as the beam brightened to an almost blinding amount.
As the light died down, in its place came a shocking vision.
Ghosts poured out into the sky from the heart of the maze, like a herd of Pac-Locusts.
...
Traditorus smiled. He won. Or so he thought.