Dreams and Desires

Chapter 3

Almost

*I own nothing and any similarities with any other works are purely coincidental.

He was standing upon a solid stone-looking ground. The floor had been cut and shaped long ago, leaving a just circle in the middle where the mask had been. One small misstep would lead to a very long fall, and he had no intention of dying. He looked over and saw the purple mask leaning towards the edge of the cliff. It was truly a sight to behold; the impeccable Oni craftsmanship had made the mask feel light and weightless, and yet it was extremely durable and strong. The design of the mask was pretty hideous looking to him, but it somehow felt beautiful at the same time. The art was mesmerizing, and it was a shame that he wouldn't get to keep it.

Lloyd charged up his energy. "Give me one reason not to say goodbye to it right now."

Harumi turned to look at him. Her face was expressing feelings of frustration and impatience, but she did not let the feelings overpower her. She still had a chance of salvaging her relationship with Lloyd. He might even be persuaded to join her. She just had to wait a bit longer, and choose the opportune moment to strike.

"I'll give you two. You want to see your father again, and you love me."

Lloyd froze. She was right of course, he was in love with her. He couldn't deny his feelings, but he couldn't afford to show them either. Not when she would seek to exploit his emotions for her own gain. He tried to turn away and ignore her but he couldn't. She saw his face soften and knew she had gotten through.

"Ah, your emotions. You can't get rid of them. It's hard to think, isn't it?" Harumi was spot on with each statement. As much as Lloyd wanted to push her away, he just couldn't. "I felt those feelings too." said Harumi, smiling kindly at him. He couldn't believe her; no, he told himself that she had to be lying. But what if she was telling the truth? He needed her more than anything else in the world. Lloyd felt his defense fade away and he smiled back at her. He let go of his worries and just moved up against her. "We truly are kindred spirits." she said. Just being close to her; having her near, it comforted him. He could just be himself around her, and it always felt magical. His anger had dissipated and he had begun to calm himself once more. Harumi slowly pulled out a knife and pounced.

Lloyd woke with a start, shaking himself out of another nightmare. He was surprised at the nightmare however, as it was not Harumi's death. He had finally had a different dream than before, which reassured him a bit. Looking around he saw that he was no longer in the Monastery. He was surrounded entirely by sky and sea, which was quite a shock. The fact that he was not drowning was quite a relief to him, but that feeling was overshadowed when saw how he was flying.

Lloyd was riding upon an Elemental Power dragon. The dragon was that same shade of cyan he saw before, except for its white mane. Interestingly, the dragon had a sort of bubbly looking mane; almost like it was made up of a bunch of clouds clumped together. Lloyd leaned over to try and pet the dragon, but he found himself unable to fully move his arms. Looking down Lloyd saw that his wrists were bound by handcuffs. "Goddamn vengestone." he muttered under his breath. The dragon's other rider stirred at this and turned towards him. It was the same person that had been in his room, and Lloyd immediately felt a chill run down his spine. The person stared at him for several seconds before turning their attention back to flying the dragon. Lloyd looked down at the water below him, and he seriously contemplated jumping. They weren't flying all too high right now, and he was pretty sure he could at least tread water with the handcuffs on. He might not be able to swim very far, but it seemed to be his only path of escape.

Lloyd decided to try for a subtler, but far more complicated escape. He would try to climb down to the underside of the dragon and wait. After making sure that his disappearance went unnoticed, Lloyd would scurry over to the dragon's mouth and try to break the handcuffs off with its sharp teeth. It was incredibly risky, and there were countless ways it could go very horribly wrong. But he went for it anyway.

Lloyd started shifting himself to the right of the dragon. He took his time, making sure he wasn't being obvious about it. After several minutes of shuffling and scooting himself over, he stood up and quietly jumped off the side of the dragon. He was able to reach back and grab hold to the dragon, and then he waited. So far, his plan was working. He had managed to slide down the dragon without drawing the gaze of the mysterious figure. He then started maneuvering his way towards the mouth of the dragon. It was very grueling work due to how much the handcuffs limited his movement, but after a few minutes he managed to make it up towards the front of the dragon. He was nearly out of breath, but he managed to loop the handcuffs up and around one of the dragon's teeth.

The dragon recoiled, suddenly noticing the stranger holding on to its mouth. The dragon shook and whipped its head around, desperately trying to free itself from Lloyd's grasp, and the person flying the dragon got one the reins ripped straight out of their grasp. They looked around in shock to see that Lloyd had somehow vanished. Looking down, they saw no obvious sign of him in the water but motioned the dragon towards the ocean anyway. The dragon obliged, although it was still wrestling with Lloyd. The dragon gave up squirming and chomped downwards, trying to crush the foreign attacker, but it only succeeded in breaking the handcuffs off cleanly in half. The dragon roared in pain, and he flipped up to land atop its head.

The rider jumped up in surprise, and Lloyd started charging up his energy. The rider was quicker on the draw however, and shot yet another cyan beam at him. Lloyd was able to use his energy to shield himself from the beam, but they had succeeding in delaying his attack. The rider shot once more, and Lloyd was forced to leap out of the way. Unfortunately he hadn't noticed which way he was jumping, and he fell off the side of the dragon. Lloyd was free falling towards the water but he was able to use his energy to propel himself up to the dragon's back. He landed behind the rider and he was able to back them up against the dragon's head. He had the chance to escape, but Lloyd wanted revenge. It felt very wrong to him but he started to charge up his energy.

"Lloyd?" said a voice from behind him.

No. It's not possible, she can't be here. "Lloyd?" His energy dissipated and he slowly turned around to see Harumi standing behind him. "Rumi?" he gasped. She smiled back at him and he started walking towards her. And that's when he got hit by a cyan beam and collapsed on the dragon's back. The rider waved off the apparition and it vanished into thin air. "How pathetic." they remarked, disgusted at the sight of Lloyd's crumpled body. And then they turned their attention back to flying.

The Ninja had gathered on the rebuilt Destiny's Bounty to try and locate Lloyd. They were in the Control Room discussing possible outcomes and checking the map laid out before them. Nya was pacing across the room and loudly venting to everyone. It was obvious she was very worried about him, and she was by far the closest to Lloyd out of all them. But her near fanatical rage was scaring Jay, and it almost made him question whether Nya was really in love with Lloyd. He dismissed his worries, as the important thing was finding him.

"But what would this Elemental Master want with Lloyd?" Kai questioned. "What use would he be to them, and why not take any of us?"

"Clearly because you're just not valuable enough." Jay mused.

"Shut it motormouth." Kai said quietly. To the whole group he joked, "Clearly our prince is just reuniting with his fellow royalty."

"Stop calling him that guys." Cole said, his patience wearing thin with their antics.

"Why? He's not here to be offended anymore." Kai quipped.

"Enough of this!" Master Wu snapped. "We must find Lloyd and bring him back. I do not know why he has been taken from us, but we must concentrate all of our efforts on finding him."

"Yes Master Wu." Kai muttered sheepishly.

"What I can try to explain however, is what powers we may face in the near future. The Master of Dreams can manipulate anyone's pre-existing dreams and change any detail they wish. They can also conjure an entirely artificial dream state, where they have more complete control over who or what appears."

"Which one of those do you think was affecting Lloyd?" Jay asked.

"It was almost certainly the artificial dream state. Lloyd would have needed to have been dreaming of the exact same location and people every night for it to have been simple dream manipulation. Without that a Master of Dreams could not recreate the same nightmare for so long." Master Wu responded. "This means that unfortunately my nephew never actually slept over that entire two week period."

"No wonder he was acting so strangely." Kai mused.

"As I was saying, the Master of Dreams also possesses the power to erase memories. The power can only erase events that have transpired after the subject has been asleep. And fortunately for my nephew, the artificial dream allows the brain to properly form lasting memories. They can also create temporary apparitions, although it is only possible for them to project an image of someone or something of great importance to the target. The final power the Master of Dreams cam use is the ability to immediately put others to sleep. The master must hit the target with a beam of energy, but the power is very dangerous."

"So what; they can mess up dreams, delete a few memories, cause hallucinations, and put people to sleep? Doesn't really sound that bad to me." Jay said.

"It may not at first, but all of the powers can be extremely dangerous." The ninja turned to the see the source of the voice, and they saw that Misako had arrived. She had been off doing some historical research, but had rushed back when she heard about Lloyd's abduction. "Each power is relatively safe when used in moderation, but they can all be used to devastating effect. That's why the power of memory disruption and apparition are so limited in their use. The First Spinjitzu Master knew how they could be used if the powers were passed down to the wrong person, and so he restricted how they could be used. And that is a trait entirely unique to this element. It offers little help in combat, with the only tactic besides being able to put enemies to sleep. The powers are far more situational than most, but they can be used to a far greater effect."

"What is of far more concern however is that the artificial dream state created by the Elemental Master has the potential to permanently alter and change the subject. It is said to be immeasurably difficult to accomplish, but it is theoretically possible for one of the artificial dream states to have lasting effects in the real world. The target not only remembers those dreams, but they become more ingrained in the mind than regular memories. If Lloyd was telling you all the truth, then my son may already have been groomed for a permanent mental alteration."

"Lloyd was telling us the truth." Everyone glanced at Zane, a bit surprised with how immediate his response was. "I took note of both his heart rate, and the length it took him to respond to us, and the data indicates that he was telling us the truth." They all relaxed a bit after hearing the news. Although Lloyd's current predicament was very bad, they were at least glad that he had told them about it. If he hadn't mentioned anything, then they would be completely lost.

"That is not the end of my findings." They all turned back to Zane; the worry creeping back onto every face. "Lloyd took approximately 43 seconds to respond after Jay asked him about his well-being, and in that time, his heart rate was not so steady. His heart rate started off at normal levels, but within 10 seconds it had increased. It increased for the following 20 seconds, before it tapered off. Based on that data, I would hypothesize that he may not have told us the entire truth. There was in fact one very vital detail that he never explained to us."

"What?" they yelled simultaneously.

"Lloyd never mentioned what was in his nightmare. He only discussed the repeated circumstances of the nightmare."

A look of dread and horror crossed every face in the room. "How could we have missed that?!" Nya yelled. She went back to her venting beration, while Cole responded a bit more critically. "So Lloyd has been abducted and we don't know anything about what he's going through. If we had thought to ask him that, we might have been able to guess at what this Elemental Master has planned for him. But we didn't, and now Lloyd will have to suffer for it."

"I noticed at the time that he was hiding that information." Zane's response once again drew in the attention of everyone in the room, but this time it was out of anger and frustration.

"If you noticed he hadn't said anything about it, then WHY DIDN'T YOU ASK HIM?!" Jay screamed, his voice shrill and high-pitched.

"Lloyd had lied to me directly when I had previously asked him what may have been causing his trouble sleeping, and I thought it that may have come off as rude for me to pry for information that he was unwilling to reveal. Had I known that he would be kidnapped so soon afterwards, I would have certainly asked him more about his nightmare. But at the time I wished to respect his privacy, and I was planning to inquire more by myself at a later time."

The ninja accepted his reasoning, although it didn't make it sting any less for them.

"It is also important to note that Lloyd was never told about the Elemental Power of Dreams, and so he would not have known the true cause of his recurring nightmare. Without that knowledge he may have felt more personally responsible for his troubled sleep, and that may have made him unsure of himself. If it was an issue that he was previously concerned about, prior to the start of the nightmares, then that could have further compounded the shame and apprehension he felt about his dream."

"However I personally find the precise timing of his abduction to be the more interesting detail. Lloyd told us that he was having this nightmare, and walked away from the table after Nya hurt his feelings." She winced a bit at the blunt observation. "By the time we concluded the conversation, Lloyd had vanished. The only logical explanation I can surmise for the timing is that the person had been spying on us, most likely for a long period of time, and decided that Lloyd needed to be taken before he said anything else. They may have timed their attack purposefully, so as to prevent Lloyd from revealing the contents of his dream."

The ninja stood dumbfounded for nearly a minute before Master Wu responded. "Zane, you have given us all much to think about. I believe that we should all try to get some rest. As much as we all want to get Lloyd back now, we cannot find ourselves losing too much sleep."

"Yeah, we certainly don't want to be any more aggressive, shy, or insecure." Kai chuckled. Nya glared at him for the obvious insult, but she didn't let herself get drawn into a fight. No, she wanted to save her energy for whoever had Lloyd. And she had no intention of letting them live to see another day.

I had planned for the two scenes here in this chapter to be a lot smaller, but they ended up taking so long that the main scene I had been excited to write will be moved to chapter 4. This chapter exists mostly as an exposition dump; just to help explain how the Element of Dreams works. I'm pretty proud with how it turned out though.