//------------------------------// // A Weird Creature Indeed // Story: Dream Catcher // by Puking Coyote //------------------------------// Chapter 2 A Weird Creature Indeed I woke up on a cold stone surface with the biggest headache of my life in fact all of my body felt like it just came from being dragged by a train for several miles. I looked around and saw Screwball and Fireball but Cloud Striker was not to be seen. I grunted as I forced myself towards Screwball “Hey Screwball? Wake up, Screwball!” She opened her eyes “Wha…” “Where are we? This was done by one of your portals right, so where are we?” She looked around “A whales stomach perhaps?” “What?! Why would you send us into a whales stomach are you nuts…oh, yeah I forgot you are.” “Mean” “Were not in a whale’s stomach” Fireball groaned. “Then where are we?” I asked again. “I don’t know” Screwball confessed “I was trying to transport the ball away from the Fireballs flame.” “But where to?” “Your goal of course.” She then looked around “This is…not your goal.” “Thanks for that insight” I replied looking away. Just then I saw a light moving slowly in the sky and the distant image of Cloud Striker moving towards it. As he got closer there was a popping sound and he disappeared “What the hay?” I started too spread my wings to investigate but didn’t when we saw a metal robotic device quickly hovering towards us then stop a foot away. It was just sitting there as if waiting for something; I touched it with my hoof. Suddenly it started to beep then a green laser grid shot from it. The device scanned the three of us then flew away beeping madly. “Oh, that’s not good” Fireball stated. “We should leave, like now!” I replied remembering what I saw happen to Cloud Striker. We quickly stretched our wings and flew from that spot. We went as fast as we could both carrying Screwball by an arm because she had no wings to fly with. As the landscape was stretched before us I realized that it was barren nothing but red rocks and dust. “Fireball?” “What?” “Do you have any food?” Fireballs eyes widened as he searched the ground below “This can be a problem” he replied. “I don’t even see water down there. Hey Screwball do you think that you can open another of your vortexes?” “Nope, tried It already but if you need water couldn’t you squeeze some out of the clouds?” I looked up at the weird gas looking clouds “It looks poisonous I don’t think that we should drink it unless we have too.” “We have to get some good water and find Cloud Striker, you did say that you saw him didn’t you Dream Catcher?” Fireball asked. “Yes but I don’t know what that light did to him though but…I, what are you doing Screwball?” Screwball had became very excited and was trying to swing herself not caring what could happen if we let go. “Oooo pretty” she stated to herself “looks like a bubble I like bubbles they are sooo bubbly! Don’t you two like bubbles? I don’t like them when they pop though that makes me sad.” “What are you talking about Screwball and stop moving around so much we might drop you.” She did not listen but instead pried herself from our grip and started to plummet towards the ground “Weeee!” She screamed arms wide apart as if having fun. “Crap!!!” Fireball and I both cursed as we both dived after her but as we neared the ground we suddenly hit something soft in the air but there was nothing to be seen. “This is fun!” Screwball laughed while jumping on the invisible cushion in the air. “bubble, bouncy bubble, bouncy bouncy bouncy bounce.” “Wait you can see what we are standing on?” Fireball asked. “Yes!” We waited for her to elaborate but she didn’t “Are you going to tell us what you see?” I asked. She stopped bouncing and looked around at the surroundings “there are many bubbles” she then squinted. “they have pretty gardens inside.” “Gardens? That means water!” Fireball explained. He then shot at the invisible surface with a fire ball but the spot he hit only shimmered blue then became invisible once again. “Give me a hoof here Dream Catcher” we then tried for a very long time to dig our way through the surface to no avail. After a while Screwball spoke up “Guys?” “What?” we both asked a little annoyed at our failure. “What about the door can we use that?” “What door?” “The one right there” she causally said while pointing at a particular area. “Why didn’t you tell us that in the first place?!” I asked. She shrugged her shoulders then guided us to the spot sure enough there was something that felt like a handle. It took all three of us but we managed to pry the door open once that was done we all looked in and saw a very surprising sight. Inside the dome there was a huge garden with green bright budding trees feed by streams of clear water. Every trees in the dome had more fruit on them than I ever thought possible. As we descended onto the green soft grass that carpeted the domes floor I saw movement of a bird by a marble statue. As Fireball and Screwball tried the fruit from the trees I investigated the marble figure. It had two hands and legs with ugly looking tentacles knobs at the ends. The figure was hairless except at the top of it head where it’s main flowed down its back and fell upon the cloths it was wearing. Suddenly the realization dawned upon me that I had already seen this type of creature before, in fact my dad and Dashes dad were once them before they changed into horses, this was a human. Even though dad could change between his human and pony form whenever he wanted I have only seen it once and that was many years ago. “Ummm, Fireball?” “What is it?” he asked coming up to where I was “Wow…that is one ugly looking creature.” I looked around the wooded area “I don’t understand they were wiped out how can they still be alive?!” “Who were?” “Humans, that statue is of a human! We are in the human relm.” Fireball looked at me “Wait I thought that the sprites wiped them out at least that’s what I heard from Prince Jackson.” “Yeah, your right then maybe this is an abandoned facility. Wait, if this is the relm of humans then the Sprites that destroyed them are surely here and I have living energy inside of me!” “What does that have to do with anything?” “They eat energy like mine!” “Oh…well I can see how that could be bad.” I began to freak out “Wait what was that?” I asked hearing some rumbling in the bushes. Fireball heard it too “I don’t know.” We started to back away our eyes fixed on that spot “Don’t let it be a sprite, don’t let it be a sprite” I said over and over under my breath like a silent prayer. “What are you doing?” Screwballs voice came behind us as she came out of the bushes we were watching. Me and Fireball both gave out screams of fright and collapsed onto the ground. “Don’t do that!” Fireball yelled. "Look at Dream Catcher you scared him half to death." I was lying on the ground trying not to hyperventilate “Screwball…I’m going to get you” I finally managed to speak. “You two are so weird” she replied. We continued exploring the dome but as we neared the center we began to hear soft voices almost like cooing of doves. As we entered a clearing I saw something that I never thought possible there were three humans laying around in the grass by a large fountain. They were wearing white robes which matched their glowing white skin almost exactly; in fact they were too white which showed that they had never been outside in the sun. Their blond hair was cut short and had flower crowns on them. In fact they were wearing flower lays and bracelets along with other jewelry. One of the humans saw us and gave a big laugh then started coming towards us. Oddly enough he was walking on two feet which was amazing since it didn’t even have a tail to keep itself balanced. The human was not much bigger than a full grown pony and not nearly as strong. In fact the creature looked weak as if it never had to do any sort of labor its whole life leaving its muscles to become like jelly. I looked over at Fireball as the creature was examining him and could see the nervousness on Fireballs face. Screwball however pranced up to the other two humans who were still laying down and was yapping away to them like only she could do. The human then looked at me and after a few seconds pointed to the glowing stripes on my body “Lithrume?” it asked. “Lithrume what is that?” I asked it. The creature looked at me curiously “I am Dream Catcher what is your name?” The human coked his head like it was confused “Can you understand me?” The human suddenly got onto all fours and started to pet me on the head “Jolk jurmi host glox” it stated hopeful of a response. “I can’t understand you” I then pointed to my ear and shook my head to help him understand. The human after a while seemed to understand and after a few more exchanges of weird words got bored and started to pick flowers and string them together. After the human finished he put a flower lace over my and Fireballs necks and walked off back towards the fountain. The other two humans by the fountain were being amused by Screwballs display of magic in fact they were laughing and clapping their hands like children. It then hit me they were just like children their bodies were that of young adults but their minds were that of eight year olds. Soon other humans came to the clearing to watch Screwballs show but after a while they became tired and fell asleep. “They sure get tired easily” Fireball stated. “Do you think they got bored with me?” Screwball asked. “No they are just tired, they seem to fatigue faster than we do perhaps they just lie around all day and are not in shape” I replied. Fireball looked around “This makes no sense how can they be so advance in their technology to create this dome but yet be so dense?” None of us had an answer to this question. We spent the night in the dome; the humans seemed to have accepted us and even gave us some gifts such as flowers or fruit. In the morning we left the dome to search for Cloud Striker. Almost a week had went by and we still could not find any sign of Cloud Striker in fact I was starting to fear the worst especially since he did not have Screwball to show him where the domes were. We spent the days searching and during the nights we stayed in the domes which were surprisingly exact replicas of each other even the humans in them acted the same. I was still amazed at how innocent and docile the humans were it was unlike anything that I was told about them. I spent that week learning the human’s language but it was so simple that even when learned no real conversation could be made. In fact the language more revolved around expressions most of which were happy. I was unable to figure out from them what had happened since the sprites but the word sprite did get some reactions and was usually followed by a mention of Collective. “Collective? That makes no sense” Fireball replied when I told him of my findings. “I know it doesn’t but it the only clue that these simple people have been able to give us about this world” I replied. He then thought for a minute “Do you think that maybe they used these domes to hide themselves from the sprites?” Suddenly a terrifying idea came to me “What if this is a farm? What if the sprites are farming the humans for food! I don’t like this not at all, the sprites can come at any time for their harvest” I then started to freak out a little from this idea. “Calm down Dream Catcher!” Fireball shouted shaking my shoulders. The humans seemed to have backed away confused by the loud noisy things yelling at each other. It was very clear that they never heard something shout before. “You can be calm they don’t see you as food, if they come I will be trapped in this dome…I have to get out!” I then pushed Fireball away and headed towards the door. When I tried to open it though it did not budge for the doors locked themselves at night. I groaned and slid down the door onto the ground. One of the humans that were watching us then tried to shout himself which came out like a mixture of a frogs croak and a dog bark. Then the other humans also started to yell in the dome mimicking him. Screwball joined them in the yelling giggling to herself the whole time, in a way I was kind of jealous that she could keep calm during these situations. Suddenly a red light started to flash in the dome and the humans stopped their yelling and obediently sat on the ground watching it. “This is not good, not good at all!” I whimpered as a hidden door in the side of the dome started to open. Suddenly a large skinny robot with tentacles came out of the door and started to inspect the area when it saw me frantically clawing at the door it gave a metallic screech and flew at me. I pressed myself against the door too terrified to run as it stretched its tentacles towards me if it were not for fireball shooting it with a blast of magma I don’t know what would have happened. “Come on!” Fireball shouted and started to fly down a dark tunnel that the machine had came out of, Screwball and I quickly followed after him. I looked back and could see the humans running around flapping their arms mimicking our wings before the door closed separating their lighted world from the darkness of the tunnel. Fireball quickly lit his horn and took the lead down the tunnel it looked like a metallic rib cage of steel beams around us. Soon the clicking of metal could be heard we followed the sound and came to a huge opening where thousands of floating robots of all shapes were busy doing specific task like making cloths, managing bigger machines, or cooking food. “What is this place?” I asked but they were just as perplexed as I was. As we walked most of the robots didn’t seem to mind us being down there but some of them were following as if studying our actions. Soon we could see light again coming from a shaft, we flew up it and came to the planet’s surface where morning was just starting. “Ooo what is that?” Screwball commented “that building looks like a candy bar, I hope its chocolate!” She then ran up to the building which was also invisible and took a chomp “nope it’s not chocolate.” “I can’t believe that you just tried to eat a building screwball” I replied. Just then a huge flash of light struck Screwball in the side and she fell paralyzed but still conscious. Me and Fireball looked up and saw six floating robots that looked like brains floating in the air. In the middle of them was a metallic human figure with a face like a cockroach. “Olkm Lri Jusry mosi heio” the robot called to us. “Hey why did you do that?!” Fireball shouted while making sure Screwball was alright. Suddenly three of the smaller brain bots flew to us suddenly I was shot and rendered immobilized like Screwball. Fireball tried to fight back but the brain bots got him too I could feel as the robot injected some type of device into me the bigger robot then waited a few minutes before speaking again. “This is Keeper 447 what is your names and purpose on this planet? Speak!” I could understand it whatever was injected into me allowed me to understand its speech “I am Prince Dream Catcher, and those two are Princess Screwball and Prince Fireball” I replied trying to sound as important as possible. The robot hummed to itself as it processed some information “You three are not part of the database.” The brain bots then scanned us sending the information to the larger one “You three have been scanned before but did not go to processing that warrants punishment.” “Were not from this dimension how can we be punished for something that we did not even know about?” I asked. “The Collective has commanded all sentient life to be scanned and processed” the robot hummed. “Collective what is that?” “It is all of us in one, now come with me and be processed so you may be punished.” The robots then un-paralyzed us and took off at a slow pace not even looking back. If they did they would have seen us take off in the opposite direction as fast as we could. Once we were sure that we were safe we rested under a cliff. “What was that about and what is this processing? It sounds bad” Fireball whined. “I don’t know but it was weird that those robots let us go so easily I wonder what they are planning” I replied. I laid my head against a rock and fell asleep weary from everything that happened. The next thing that I knew I opened my eyes only to see two green human eyes looking back at me. “Aughh” I shouted falling over myself waking up Fireball and Screwball who had also fallen asleep. The creature in front of me was not like the other humans for it had longer blond hair and wore mostly black. I looked at its face and noticed that it was different for it was much crisper and tan. This human had no living energy coursing in it but without a doubt it was some type of human. “I told you three to be processed? Why did you disobey a command from the Collectives agent?” I looked at the human wide eyed it seemed stronger than the humans in the domes and not to mention curvier in the waist but that must be in order to somehow support the two small lumps on its chest. The human was obviously smarter than the other humans but only looked half their age probably under twenty years but of course I really had no idea as to how humans aged in this world. “Sorry my good sir but we don’t want to be processed when we don’t even know what it means.” Fireball replied trying his best to be polite. “First you should know that I am a female so you must address me as such, secondly since you have no clue what processing is that logically means that the collective did not send you.” She then walked over to a hovering vehicle and took out some type of device with a mechanical red eye and placed it onto her face. She soon returned to her robots “the collective had told me that they were not sent by them. Also since they already have one of these creatures it is an unnecessary risk to let them live so we must terminate them.” “Already have one? They must be talking about Cloud Striker…wait, TERMINATE?!!!” I thought. I started to try and take off but the robots immobilized all three of us with their beams. “Don’t even try it, those injections we gave you has trackers in them so no matter where you run we will find you.” “Madam Keeper” the bigger robot chimed. “Yes” “We cannot comply with the orders regarding this one” It then pointed towards me. “Reasons?” “He is a hybrid human with Lithrume.” “What percentage?” She asked looking at me now curious. “50%” She then pressed the side of her eyepiece “The collective has decided that he is protected by his bloodline but terminate the other two. “Compliance” the robots then began to hum while their cannons started to glow a hot red. “No!” I screamed but was too late the cannons blasted at Fireball and Screwball. When the light was gone there was no trace of my friends to be found. “Why? Why did you…Fireball…Screwball…why?” The woman then took out a black stick that was spouting electricity and taped it into my side then all went black.