REaLA: Journey of Your Nightmares
(-)
The Second Night
Aaaaaah...now this was more like it. This was the kind of dream Will had missed. Bright, cheerful sunshine...lush, healthy green grass...trees swaying in the warm, gentle breeze...a river bubbling swiftly around them...multicolored balloons floating hopefully and peacefully through the pure, expanive blue sky... "Pure Valley" he remembered it was called. It was the perfect name. Everything was so simple and pure and peaceful. Will just wanted to lie down in the grass and breathe the fresh air. If only...
He frowned as he felt that dark, dampening presence casting its morbid shadow over him. Why did he have to be here too?
REaLA hovered close behind him, arms crossed, huffily. It seemed that he didn't really want to be here either. So why was he? "Hey," the red-and-black Nightmaren shrugged. "I'm sick of being stuck on that boring old island. I've just about done all the damage I could there, and so when the door to your first dream world opened up, well...it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up." He glared dourly at the peaceful, pristine landscape. "Though I have to say, your mind is one horrendous place."
"Hoo!" hooted a familiar puffy brown hooter. "His mind, exactly! This realm of Nightopia was created from your own feelings of peace and tranquility, Visitor." Yes, Owl had at last recovered from his last encounter and had
agreed to accompany Will as "protection", though protection from what was completely irrelevent. Everyone already knew he was completely useless against REaLA. "In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we found the Ideya of Purity here, Visitor!"
"Exactly," REaLA agreed. "It's making me sick."
"Then why don't you leave?!" Will called back to him.
"I told you already, I'm bored! If I go back to the Dream Gate, I'd be bored. Even though I feel sick here, at least I'm not bored. Actually..." A devious little smile began to twist onto his face. "I might find a way to have some fun here..."
Will noticed Owl gulping uneasily. "WELL!" he boomed, drowning out REaLA's low chuckling. "Shall we go for a little tour and look for the ideya, Visitor?"
"I thought that's why we were here."
"Well, yes, it is, Visitor."
"Then why do you need to ask me again?"
"Er...st-stalling for time, Visitor..."
REaLA's chuckles elevated into full-on maniacal laughter, and Will finally understood what he meant. "Oh...yes...perhaps...we should..."
"Well, erhem! The Ideya of Purity is the first missing piece of your heart, Visitor. I-It's...essential that you recover it... Yes, very essential..."
"YAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."
"Oh...of course...I can see..."
Unfortunately, just then, a group of baby cone-headed angels flew up and interrupted their very exciting conversation. A group of them hovered up around Will, staring curiously into his face with big black eyes, while a significant number hung back, eyeing REaLA worriedly.
"Um...hi there..." Will suddenly felt a bit nervous. He was probably the first human these coneheads had seen in quite a long time.
"Yrglubyyrgldyyrglpuff!" one of them told him.
"Er...okay then..."
"Wacchiwowachiwowa?" another one asked.
"What are they and what are they saying?" Will desperately asked Owl.
"Oh, those are the Nightopians, Visitor. They're the inhabitants of Nightopia, Visitor. .... And I have no idea, Visitor."
"Oh!" Will suddenly remembered from last time. "Nightopian rats! ...Only these aren't rats."
"Of course they are," REaLA gravely spoke up, snapping out of his evil laughter mode. "You haven't seen anything yet. Sure, they might look all cute and innocent...but they're RATS, I tell you!"
At the sound of his elevated voice, the Nightopians gave off little squeaky screams and hightailed it out of there like their heads were on fire. Will sighed, deeply. He was never going to get to communicate with the Nightopians now.
He was just about to take another step further into Pure Valley when something rather unusual stopped him dead in his tracks. Another voice, light and high-pitched, calling out from somewhere above.
"HEY THERE, STOOOOPID-HEAD!!!"
He was surprised to notice his companions' reactions. Owl looked stricken with fright. That old bird was going to have a heart attack yet. Meanwhile, REaLA looked...just as stricken. Which was really saying something. "What?!" Will anxiously demanded. "What is it?!"
REaLA took a deep, empowering breath. "Oh no."
Now Will was really afraid. If this thing could make him say 'oh no', it had to be pretty bad. And he was right.
In a spray of very familiar little yellow sparkles, a creature hovered up in front of them. It looked very much like REaLA, except it had purple jester horn/hat/tentacle things and legs. Its pants were light purple, its undershirt white...and it wore a heavy set of deep purple armor, over its arms, chest, lower legs, and hips Unlike REaLA, it had a light flesh-colored face and a gold, rounded masquerade mask with a blue feather sticking out of the bridge, and was altogether slightly smaller in stature...though it was hard to tell under all that cumbersome armor. It smiled, playfully, and did a little skipping dance in midair. "Well, I'd heard the rumors, but I would've bet a million spike bombs that you'd never do such a thing. I never expected this!" The creature burst into amused giggles, and Will strangely found himself smiling along with it. He couldn't help it--it was just so...cheerful and carefree!
REaLA growled. "Nights... You know very well that this is all your fault."
Nights grinned, folding its hands behind its back. "But you started it, Reala! ...Or should I say REaLA." It doubled over in crazy giggles again.
REaLA only scowled. "It's not my fault there's some kind of curse on that Dream Gate that destroys the letters of the English language. What do you want anyway?"
"Oh, nothing," Nights replied, smiling down at Will. "I just came to say hi! What's your name?"
Will felt hypnotized by the purple loveliness before him, filling his senses. He could barely remember his own name. "C-Clarrrrrissssss..."
"Claris? That's an interesting name for a boy. Do you like cookies, Claris?"
"Yesssssss..."
"Do you like cookies with chocolate cream and rainbow sprinkles and magical bunny rabbits of sunshine?!"
"Yesssssssss..."
"Then come with me!"
"YEAH!!!"
REaLA and Owl could only stare on in disbelief as Will leaped into the creature's arms, clamping himself around its armored chest and giggling like a hyena on a sugar high. "You know...he only wants to take your ideya, right?"
"WHAT'S AN IDEYA?!"
"Oh forget it. He's not worth my time."
"B-B-But-but-but-but..." Owl puttered. "B-b-b-but-but-but-but..."
"He's out of gas again," REaLA observed. "Whatever. I'll just go find some other sap to trick into dualizing with me."
He opened his dualizing manual...and froze. "The host may only dualize with ONE boy and ONE girl until the end of the Game. The genderless entity must NEVER seek out another dualization partner while the Game is still in effect. Otherwise, the fabric of the universe will tear apart and the Earth will be taken over by twenty million white blankets named Jackle who will all start singing at the exact same time and thus destroy the human race with the radioactive signals. For help defeating a Jackle, please refer to our other extremely helpful manual 'Touch-Dashing for Ideyits'. Great." He sighed and flipped the manual back into his allotted hammer space. "Oh well. At least I can go get a girl. It shouldn't be too hard, with my dashing good looks. They'll be begging to let me use their powers!"
"Waitaminutes!" Nights called out, as Will climbed up onto his head. "Youz ain't going nowherez!"
REaLA turned around and cocked his head at him. "Oh yeah? And how are you going to stop me?"
"I'm going to lock you in a cage!" Nights cried, a smile lighting up his peach-colored face and looking immensely proud of himself. "And I'm going to build another cage, in case you break out of it! And then I'll build another one too, in case you break out of that one!"
"And what happens if I break out of that one too?"
Nights's face fell. "Er..." His face scrunched down as he concentrated. "Um...well...aaaugh, my brain hurts! Go get him, my Googles!!!"
Just then, 10^100 multicolored birds burst out of nowhere and surrounded REaLA, all staring at him with their 10^100x2 eyes.
"Teeheeheeheehee!" Nights evil-laughed. "I'll see you around, dear brother of mine!" He flew off into the clear blue sky of Pure Valley, dragging a grinning Will by the end of his arm.
REaLA stared back at the Googles, quizzically. "So...are you going to attack me now or what?"
"But-but-but-but-but-but..." Owl spoke up, flapping lazily forward. "But-but-but-but... Well, Visitor, well, Visitor, well, oh well, Visitor, well, Visitor, hoo, Visitor, hoo-hoo! Visitor."
"Now he's completely broken," REaLA explained. "Will you just hurry up and kill me already, so I don't have to listen to that any longer?!"
The Googles cocked their 10^100 heads at him. Then they fell back...and prepared to strike. "Google Search!!!" they all screamed, dive-bombing him at the exact same time. Two of them clamped onto his body and began dragging him away towards a glowing blue cage in the distance. The others all clamped onto each other, forming a gigantic chain of multicolored birds stretching out across the entire valley.
"This is so embarrassing..."
Not to mention that they were still repeatedly squawking out their battle cry, even as they carted his body through the air and shoved him through some kind of blue-listerine force field over the cage, which burned like heck. And that wasn't the worst of it. Three Googles perched on the top of the golden cage, while fortunately, the remaining 10^100-3 flew off to rejoin their master. "I'm feeling lucky!" one of them raised its neck and cawed.
REaLA was just about to breathe a sigh of relief...when his body started twitching, involuntarily. "What the...?!" he cried. "What's going on?!" His arms were forced upwards, and his head was pulled back.to stare into the cage's deep gold roof. "Aaaaaugh!!!" he screamed, when all of a sudden, his body rocketed forward into the air. It swerved around, zooming for the other side of the cage. Then, it turned a circle around its perimeter. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!!" REaLA continued to scream, as the world spun and rushed past him in dizzy circles. Desperately, he tried to land, but it wasn't working. "Help!" he finally yelled, against his better judgement. "I can't stop!!!"
"Oh! Hoo!" Owl at last popped out of his shocked trance, turning around to look up at the cage. "REaLA is trying to find a way out! Why, how mighty intrepid of him! He never gives up, does he?"
"Yaaaaaaaaah!" REaLA screamed, though the sound waves never left the globular blue force field. "Make it stop! Make it stop! P-Please, just make it stop!!!"
Meanwhile, Nights and Will were already halfway to Nightmare by now. "So, so..." Will excitedly chattered, as he watched the gentle landscape of Pure Valley drift past underneath them. "When are you gonna give me the cookies?"
"Oh..." Nights spoke up, a soft, gentle tone to his voice. "Well...you see, I just kind of made those up to get you to come with me. But you don't mind, do you?"
Nights's eyes were so big and bright and shining with unshed tears that Will just couldn't help but forgive the poor thing. Aww...he probably just wanted someone to be his friend, but he was just too shy to ask! "It's okay!" he happily chirped back. "I don't mind!"
"Good." Nights sped a little forward, though he held tightly to Will's knees, so he wouldn't fall off his piggyback ride. "Do you want to be friends, Claris?"
"Sure!" Will eagerly replied. See, I was right! "I'd love to be friends with you!" Nights was so much friendlier and more pleasant to be around than REaLA. He wondered why in the world he'd ever stuck by that awful, freakish jester for so long.
"Yay!" Nights chirped back. "A new friend! I love meeting new friends!"
Will smiled, blissfully. "Mm-hmm."
Suddenly, they reached the very border of the Nightopia world...and Nights plucked him off his back, placing him on the peak of a high, snow-covered mountain. "Um..." Will wondered, gazing down at the long drop it was to the grassy ground. "What are we doing now? I thought you were taking me back to your house or something, so we could play..."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Nights spoke up, a soft, apologetic little smile lighting up his face. "I have to kill you now. But it's all right--it'll only hurt for one tiny little second, okay?"
"Okay," Will smiled back.
"Alrighty, here we go!" Nights replied, winding one hand backwards and preparing to strike.
"...Wait, what?!" Suddenly, Will popped out of his euphoric trance. "Did you just say you're going to kill me?!"
"Yeah," Nights told him, his voice completely calm, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. "You agreed to let me kill you... I just need this teeny little favor from you. I thought we were friends..."
"Ah..." Will's chest clutched as he was again overwhelmed by Nights's pouting, innocent-looking face. "Um...I can't do that. I mean...then I'd be dead."
"But you'd be going to better place!" Nights assured him. "It'll be wonderful! You can just lie around all day and dream! You'll never have to wake up! You'll never have to worry about school or your parents ever again!"
"...But I'd be dead."
"You don't have to worry about the pain," Nights tried to comfort him. "I promise I'll make it as painless as I possibly can. And it'll all be over as quick as a flash! You probably won't even feel it!"
"Errrr..." Will desperately tried to resist those awful, sad, pleading eyes. "B-But...but I don't want to die."
"Why not?" Nights whined, letting his body go limp with disappointment.
"...because then I'd be dead..."
"Oh, please... " Nights put on his most powerful sparkly, overflowing, giant eyes about half the size of his head, even poking them through the slanted openings of his mask. "Please just let me kill you here. I really hate having to use force. Violence is never the answer. In the end, I'll just end up hurting you a lot more, and I'd hate for that happen!"
"Uh...uh..." Will's heart pounded in his chest. He had to get away from this psychotic jester-thing before it actually did decide to "use force". But there was no way down this steep mountainside. He'd kill himself falling from this height. Oh, gosh... He was beginning to regret coming with Nights so easily.
"...Search!!!" A sudden, sharp squawk pierced out over the landscape. It grew louder and louder. "GoogleSearch, GoogleSearch, GoogleSearch!!!"
For a moment, Nights whirled around in its direction. "...My Googles?" And indeed, a giant cloud of 10^100-3 multicolored birds was heading straight for them!
Will's face lit up with the realization. This is my chance! Once the birds got close enough, completely engulfing Nights, he made a desparate leap forward, landing on top of a pink Google and swiftly grabbing its reins. "Searrrrrrrch!!!" it shrieked, and promptly shot off away from the crowd.
"What the...?!" Nights cried. "Stop him! He's getting away!!!" But none of the other Googles heard him over the sound of their own happy squawking.
"Yessss!" Will cried, pumping one fist in the air as the Google glided over the green, gently sloping landscape. "I don't have an ideya of courage for nothing! Aaaaah--ppppmmmf!" Soon, the bird was shaking him from its back once it reached the other edge of the Nightopia world. He fell face-first into a patch of grass about two feet away from Owl.
"Oh! Visitor! There you are!" Owl hooted. "I was afraid you might've gotten yourself hurt, Visitor!"
"Uh...yeah..." Will weakly replied as he dragged himself back up again. "And falling out of the sky from a bird's back didn't hurt at all."
"Something simply awful is happening, Visitor..." Owl blathered on. "You see..."
Will's eyes widened when he looked up. He gasped. "REaLA's trapped in a cage!"
"Exactly!" Owl cried. "It's just dreadful!"
"Hurry, where's the door?!" Will made a break for it, sprinting as fast as he could towards the Nightopia door in the distance which had brought him into this place.
"You little...brat!" REaLA yelled as he continued to make crazy, involuntary circles around the inside of the cage. "Don't you dare...even think about...leaving me here! ...I'll make sure you... regret it...the rest of your...miserable life!"
"Errrg..." Will grunted as he yanked back on the golden door handles. "Arrrrrrg... Phew!" It wasn't opening. It was locked...or stuck closed somehow.
"Hoo, Visitor!" Owl warned him. "You can't leave here without your next ideya, Visitor. It's incredibly crucial that we get it back, Visitor."
Will let out a deep, disappointed groan. Slowly, he turned back around to the large, globular structure of the cage, with REaLA's small, red form making crazy loops inside it. "Well...I suppose it's better than being dead," he decided. "But not much better..." Will dragged himself forward towards the cage, and disgustedly yanked himself up the chain.
"Yeah, that's right," REaLA snarled, as he was forced into an acrobatic somersault. "You get your little soccer-boy butt back here and get me out of this place!"
Will sighed as he climbed up onto the round central platform of the cage, the blue listerine washing over him without a single sting. "I hate you..."
"I hate you too!!" REaLA swung down at last, seizing Will's hands in his long, bony fingers and squeezing the life out of them. There came a horrible off-key string of booming notes, like a frustrated composer slamming his forehead against a piano, and they zoomed off through the barrier of listerine, Dualized again. For a moment, that immense gray mountainous shape rose up again in Will's mind--but he ignored it, relaxing and following REaLA's swerving patterns through the sky.
"Nightopian!" REaLA cried, pointing ahead at one of the chubby little angel creatures innocently floating along on a dandelion puff just ahead. "Paraloop it!" Will had no choice but to follow, as he swerved up and around the drifting creature, ensnaring it in a deep, pitch black dimensional hole. "Ha ha!" The sinister jester-creature chuckled, as he glided easily forwards again. "I got it! Make sure to loop every Nightopian you see, got it, kid? Loop them all!!"
Will felt a little bit guilty about sucking up all those innocent Nightopians, but followed along with his wishes, accordingly. At least they didn't seem to mind, strange as it was. He thought he even heard them giggling.
Then, suddenly, as they were going though the last lap around Pure Valley, chasing a purple Google, they nearly smacked into something big, yellow, and puffy. A cloud?
"Maaaah," the cloud bleated, breaking up into small cloudlets and revealing the goat at its center. There was a sign tied around its neck in painted red letters, reading "Congratulations! You've won the goat!".
Will dashed forward towards it, but REaLA immediately yanked him back up away from it. "Don't you dare lay a finger on Shleep Squadron Number 045! They may only be weak third-level Nightmaren, but they're extremely important!"
"But it's mine!" Will protested. "I won it!"
"It doesn't matter. You can't just take them away--they're crucial. I mean, what else would I powder my face with?!"
Will had to try very hard not to laugh at that.
And so they caught the final Google, paralooped a few more Nightopians, and got a D, whatever that was, but REaLA was really mad about it. And then they had an entirely unremarkable encounter with Mr. Ball, the big, evil brother of Mrs. Fatty, which consisted of much cursing from REaLA, screaming from Will, and insane, annoying tittering from everywhere. And then an enormous white sphere twenty times the size of Will's head went shooting into his body. And they were done.
REaLA seemed frozen as the two of them appeared again at the Dream Gate. "...It was Nights," he repeated. "It was Nights's fault. He made me do it. He made me do it, I swear. He forced me...he brought me to it. I...I'll replace him! I'll make you another ball...but I can't make them that big anymore!!!" He fell to the cobblestone ground, throwing his arms up to the blackened sky. "Master, please forgive me!!!"
"Uh...there's no one there..." Will uneasily spoke, but it was mostly to himself. REaLA commenced with wailing miserably and punishing himself by smashing his face against the stones. Will just stepped back and let him. Maybe if he kept this up for a while, he'd knock himself out. Hopefully...
He stopped only a moment later, his face red and slightly squished in. "You pell ebbybun about dat, end you will be ped troue a meat grinder, you undatand?"
"Y-yes..." Will replied, slightly disturbed.
"Hoo-hoo! Visitor!" Will started back in pure terror as Owl suddenly materialized out of the fabric of the dream world right in front of him. "Excellent job defeating that giant Nightmaren, Visitor!"
'That's right!" REaLA assented, squeezing his claw-hands over Will's head. "It was him! It's all his fault!!!"
A terrible, dead paleness crept over the blond boy's face as the full impact of the realization came over him. "Owl can...teleport?!"
Owl smiled, as best as his beak would allow. "Why, of course, Visitor. I am the protector of this dream realm--all the fabric of Nightopia is mine to command, Visitor. There is no escape... Ahem, Visitor! I mean, now that you've recovered your first ideya, the door to your next Nightopia world has opened, Visitor!" And indeed, a new door had appeared close to where they were standing, sparkling invitingly in its attracting newness, as if to say "Hey! Look at me! I'm NEW!"
"Oh, joy," Will remarked, completely unenthusiastic. "I have to go through another one of those worlds with you people? Aren't I supposed to wake up now? Like, wait until "The Third Night" or something?"
"Well the quicker you can amass some more power, the quicker I can steal it from you--I mean, help you to get out of here for good! So we need to get moving right now!" REaLA sank his fingernails into Will's shoulders like talons and carried him off towards the door, much to the boy's dismay. "Let's get this Second Nightopia over wi--" He halted just at the steps, letting Will drop back to the floor. "What the...? What kind of Nightopia is this?"
This door looked exactly the same as the last one, only instead of a long, blue hill, it showed a picture of a Nightopian's head in the little circle above.
"The image above the door gives you a clue as to what that door contains of course, Vis--unwelcome guest." Owl flapped up behind them, looking a little perplexed himself. "It is usually some aspect of that world's landscape, unwelcome guest..."
Will stared up into the Nightopian's smiling face. "So...we're going to be walking around on a giant Nightopian's head?"
REaLA's left eye twitched.
"Or...maybe we'll actually be inside of the Nightopian! Like those "tour of the human body" cartoons! That'd actually be kind of cool..."
A nonexistent vein in REaLA's head popped. "I don't care what it is!" he barked, though it was clear that he actually did. "It doesn't matter! Let's just get this darn thing over with!" And with that, he zipped forward, definitively, seizing the door handles, and thrusting the doors wide open. Will and Owl stared after him in shock.
REaLA's face immediately fell. His eyes widened, until his pupils were only tiny pinpricks of terror. Whatever small amount of color had been in his face fluidly drained out, leaving him paper-white and stricken to the spot with pure horror.
"W-What is it?" Will finally hissed to him.
"They're not dead!!!" REaLA screamed--just before he was violently tackled to the ground by 99 vengeful Nightopians.
