125 Phase 109: Thoughts
While Colin was asking Cour about what really happened with Katrin's yelling and him going Frenzied, Katrin herself was facing a tough situation.
"You're suspended." Abby concluded after reviewing Katrin's case with all those Desolates and Frenzieds.
"Suspended?"
"You don't get missions, you don't get paid, and you don't get access to any J-Knight privileges." Abby explained. "Your Trial will be held in a week. The Court's rather busy these days. Lots of lower-ranking J-Knights are in the same shoes. You're not the only one who's lost Comrades. At least half our Blue Badges and below have been summoned to court."
"Well…" Katrin scratched her head. "What do I do, then?"
"Whatever you like. Go rebuild your farm, or compete in Tournaments or work at the Comrade Homes and try to nurse your Desolates back to health." Abby shrugged.
"I can do that?" Katrin stared. "If I took care of them, they'll come back to me?"
"Maybe. It's happened before." Abby paused. "Speaking of Tournaments, there are some big ones coming up, but they're mainly for boys."
"What?!" Katrin protested. "That's hardly fair!"
"The thing is, the Mountain Princess just declared a Tournament of Ascension in three nights, and believe it; it's Open."
"Open?" Katrin echoed.
"It means any guy out there can compete for the title." Abby said, shaking her head. "When Iylara heard, she, too, announced a similar Tournament, and hers is scheduled for next week."
"These princesses…" Katrin sighed.
"Anyway, Kat, there is one Tournament you might be interested in joining. Zoe said there were too many boys-only Tourneys up and decided to host one of her own tomorrow night. It's only for J-Knight girls, and only those with fewer than ten Comrades. There are prizes for four different rankings; Red, Purple, Blue, and Green and Below."
"What sort of prizes?" Katrin asked.
"Your pick of Clira, Comrades, or Import-Link gadgets. For Green and Below ranking, it's either 3000cr, any of four class-7 Tames born to her Comrades, or a Cowgirl Hat with special abilities depending on what color you choose."
{Green and Below}. Katrin glanced down at her badge, back to Yellow again, and sighed. {That's me.}
"Sign me up."
***
"So she was yelling at the J-Knights, not you." Colin summarized as Cour finished his story. "And you went Frenzied to protect her."
"Rrr." Cour agreed.
Colin sat back. "I should have guessed. Katrin really isn't the type to yell at Comrades just to let off steam. She'd kick me off a cliff for that. But when Farmer Edward said…"
Cour growled.
"Really?" Colin stared. "Why would he…"
Cour growled some more.
"Oh." Colin scratched his head. "He's really gotten attached to Katrin, huh…"
Cour growled a question.
"It's none of my business, really." Colin answered. "What Katrin wants to do… whether she goes back to farming… that's all up to her."
Cour growled again.
"Well, yeah, I guess a friend {would} want to know…" Colin thought about it. "But not now. It's too soon. Maybe after she replies my letter properly."
There was a short pause during which Colin's comms buzzed. It was May. "Colin? Are you all right? Are you captured?"
"No, I'm back at my Home Base. It's in the Forest of Legends." Colin explained. "I stopped to help out with a friend and a Frenzied."
"Oh. Well, come on back. Mom wants to bring us to the bottom of Crystal Cove."
"Coming."
Colin took three steps and the world disappeared.
***
{Colin ran.}
{Into the trees. Into the forest. There was nowhere else he could go. Desperately, he tried to find a place to hide. The forest was his only protection.}
{"Hurry!" the voice from his bracer said. "They're…"}
***
Colin stumbled. "What…?"
He glanced at his right arm, where just moments ago, it seemed, he had been wearing a white bracer…
But there was nothing there. No urgent voice. No solid armor. Just a diamond-shaped scar at the back of his wrist.
A scar he'd gotten when he'd disappeared for a few hours and couldn't remember a thing about what happened.
{Was that… a memory? Was that what happened to me? Was I chased by the Green Men? It would make sense… if I had gotten away from them before… they'd want to catch me now…}
{But why would they be after me in the first place?}
The voice. The voice from his bracer. Someone had been advising him, guiding him or something. What bracer was that? Pure white, it felt almost plastic, but Colin somehow was sure that it was made of far stronger stuff…
{Cast Andrium cover. Shadium/Spira composite layer, followed by padding…}
Colin almost fell over. "Huh? How did I know…?"
{Needs to be repaired. Need to get to the Higher Plane.}
"What needs to be repaired?" Colin asked himself in a daze. "Why am I talking and thinking to myself? What's the Higher Plane?"
{Dreams… within dreams… within dreams. What has Dreamworlds unleashed upon mankind? What has the Hiranin Empire done, creating a Psionic Network like this?! The very dreams and hopes of billions and billions of people across two dozen star systems, all tangled together…}
That wasn't his voice, Colin realized. It was a memory of someone else's voice, someone else speaking…
{"Liara. She knows. She KNOWS."}
Colin found himself sweating, his face flushed, but shivering at the same time. This was it. This was definitely it. The memories he'd lost that night were starting to come back. And he knew that name. Liara. Satrox mentioned her. She was one of the High Council of the Cult of Gaia. A big boss of the Green Men.
"That's it. They're definitely after me." Colin felt. "It's not Katrin they want and goodness knows where Phillip is. The Green Men are after me. They've been after me all along."
The Forest. It {meant} something to him. Something more than just a Home Base, or Forester work. It had kept him safe before, somehow. Was it this forest? Or another? Did it matter? In dreams… a forest was a forest. Maybe there was some sort of connection…
And whatever that connection was, it gave him abilities he never dared imagine. {Even Lynn needed to make an Edict to Pardon a Frenzied. I… I just…}
And when he did whatever it was he just did, it began to awaken his lost memories.
{The answers are here.} Colin looked around. {In the Forest. Somehow, it's as if I've known. As if I've always known. I've always been drawn to the forest. The answers are HERE.}
But that raised another question. How was he to find them? Pardoning Cour was one thing; Colin felt sure simply going around Pardoning Frenzieds wouldn't help. He wasn't even sure if he could do it again, whether it would work on any Frenzied, or if Cour was a special case.
Beeping sounded from his watch. Colin glanced at it; on his left hand, not his right…
"Colin?" It was May again. "Mom says she can pick you up from Forest Village."
"Um… yeah… I can do that." Colin still felt a bit dizzy. "Could take me a while, but I'll get there."
"Great. I'll meet you there, then."
"You're coming too?" Colin blinked.
"Yeah. I wanna talk to Professor Jijin."
***
When Scarlet landed at Forest Village atop a Scarlet Swan about half as large as Shinji's Rain, May had a shipload of Tames to drop off with Jijin. The master breeder who demanded 100 Tames in return for his piece of the Journey's Map seemed quite neutral in regards to things like Wanted bounties and neither friendly nor hostile towards Scarlet or May. When Colin joined them, however, his eyes narrowed.
"What's taking you so long, boy?" he asked.
"Huh?" Colin blinked.
"You haven't sent me a single Tame since the day you began your 100 Tames quest." Jijin pointed out. "On top of that, I don't see any of Michi's stray experiments with you. Weren't you going to find and bond them?"
"I am." Colin protested. "It's just… well… a lot of things have happened."
Jijin barked a laugh. "That's what they all say."
"So?" May, meanwhile poked the professor in the ribs, making him flinch. "Is that enough?"
"One hundred Tames." Jijin grouched at her. He touched his Traveler Watch, dragged what appeared to be a sliver of light from it, and touched that to her Watch in turn. "The map piece is yours."
Her watch flashed red. A notification came up. {Map Piece Downloaded. 3/6 pieces found.}
"Wow. You've gotten a hundred already?" Colin was impressed. "How did you get so many so quickly? Professor Jijin only accepts high class Wilds, and you can't give him two of the same kind, right?"
"Right." May agreed. "But he accepts subspecies as different kinds. For example, there are three different colors of Groba Lizards outside Soft Snows. Bringing him a Tame of each color counts as three."
"So…" Colin paused. "If I went back to Lamico and brought a Whitestreak, a Graystreak, a Blackstreak, and a Starstreak Fox… they'd count as four?"
"Yep." May said. "Just make sure they're Class 8 or higher. He'll only take those."
"Why don't we do that?" Scarlet suggested. "The J-Knights would be crawling all over the Continent of Eternal Winter looking for us right about now. Let them freeze there while we take a break and travel around."
Colin hesitated. "It's very generous of you, but…"
"But…?" May looked at him quizzically.
"I'm sorry." Colin told them. "I need to be alone for a bit. I'm going to stay at the Forest a while more. I have some questions that I want to think over."
"The Three Keys Quest?" Scarlet guessed.
"Among other things."
"Well, you did set your Starting Location to our place, right?" May pressed.
"Um…" Colin thought back. "Yeah."
"Then just leave it as that, and we'll see you tomorrow night." May suggested. "Meanwhile, I'm going to see if I can get a fourth map piece. It's in Boom City; you have to win an All-You-Can-Eat tournament. It's not very high level; Squirmia should be able to manage."
"Have fun." Colin wished them well, and watched them go.
Then he turned around and walked back into the Forest of Legends. {Lynn. I need to find Lynn.}
There was nobody else who would know the Forest better. If the answers he sought were truly a part of the Forest… {I just hope she's willing to answer my questions before I find an answer to hers.}
Maybe it would be better to figure out her third question before asking his. Colin thought about it. {What would I add to the Forest?}
Well, what did the Forest need?
{The Forest doesn't need anything. It accepts everyone into its shade. Treat it with respect and you can live in harmony with it. Disrespect it, and you suffer the consequences.}
{It is the same for the mountains… for the seas… it is the same for everything, and everyone. Even the loathsome deserves a standard level of respect to begin with… at least until they lose it by their own deeds or lack thereof.}
Colin's head swam. He wasn't used to thinking like that. But maybe he was. Something about the way he thought like that felt strangely familiar. As if he'd thought like that before…
{Maybe it's from the time I mind-linked with Kyubia…} Colin shook his head. {Or not. She always takes things lightly, everything is play and fun for her. I don't think Kyubia respected anything or anyone short of the other Lords and Lynn. And me. For some reason, she seems to respect me.}
So if not Kyubia… then it had to be from his lost memories.
{Why would I be thinking like that? What kind of things would I have been doing that I would think like that?}
These were not the thoughts of a twelve year old boy . And the fact that he understood that made the truth even more glaring. {I don't think like a twelve year old. Whatever happened to me, it affected the way I THINK.}
Just like mind-linking with Kyubia did. But while Kyubia's influence faded within the hour, this influence seemed to be there even when he couldn't remember why.
Colin sat down with his back to a tree. {What did they do to my head?! Who did this? Why?!}
His only clues were the vague memories of hiding in a forest and that the Cult of Gaia seemed to be hunting for him. {There are things that can only be done in Dreamworlds. Things like wiping memories from a sleeping boy's mind. Things like making him think about things that kids his age wouldn't usually bother about.}
Again, the voices in his memories echoed.
{"Dreams… within dreams… within dreams. What has Dreamworlds unleashed upon mankind?"}
And that brought back more recent memories.
{Dreams within dreams… it sounds like what happened to me when Hot Sands flooded.} Colin remembered the terror. That… {thing}… he met. And he was saved by a figure of light… a figure that had pulled him to safety… with a human hand.
Shiro and Raiki were there too, Colin remembered. But only Shiro and Raiki.
That drew another connection. {The Chasm of Winds. The place Shinji was afraid to enter. What did they call it? The Ancient Ways? Shiro and Raiki were the only ones among my Comrades who could enter it. M1, Kyria, and M2, Midnight were there too. Only Michi's breedings could enter. There's something special about them… something special about the Ancient Ways… and it seems to connect to those Dreams Within Dreams… and to my missing memories… and to this scar on my right hand… and to my unusual abilities… and to the Forest…}
Okay, maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe some of those connections were coincidences. But still… there was a lot to go on. Colin had questions piled on questions. Only now was he beginning to be able to put the pieces together.
{Why did Michi give me Shiro?}
That question came round full circle and hit him in the face. He asked her before, and she said {"To the Kat, I gave a cat. To the lost, I gave one to help him find his way…"}
Why would Michi even think of Colin as 'lost'... unless she knew something about him that he himself did not?
But she gave Raiki to Katrin as well… did that mean that Katrin, too, was in trouble? That the Green Men hunted her just as they did him?
{What am I saying? They're hunting all three of us, Katrin and Phillip and me, because we're the last three of the Eight who started on that night. What if it's not about my lost memories? What if simply STARTING on that night is what caused all this? What happened that night…? Something unusual…?}
{Well, the most unusual thing that happened was that Michi gave us Shiro and Raiki.}
Was that it then? The Green Men were after Colin and Katrin because of Michi?! That would bring everything back to the Ancient Ways, because only Michi's breedings could go in there… but wouldn't that tie in with that Dream Within Dream at Hot Sands? And that meant that Colin's lost memories too, were inevitably involved.
"There's no way out." Colin said to himself as his thoughts came full circle. {No matter how I look at it… I'm stuck with it.}
He got up and kicked a stone on the forest floor. "I'm tired of running and hiding and being hunted. I need to know what's going on. And I need to do something about it."
{Grand thoughts, for a twelve year old boy who can't even remember what happened.}
"Hey, I gotta do {something}." Colin said. "When we got involved with Lamico, we didn't just sit around talking and hoping everyone would just get along eventually. We {did} something… we ended the civil war…"
{I practically destroyed the entire continent.}
"They were burning the forest and the Wilds! They were burning my friends alive!" Colin protested. "What am I doing? I'm arguing with myself! Aloud!"
{But what were they really burning? Artificial 'animal' intelligences programmed by Dreamworlds Admin to be playthings for children?}
{No. Something more. Those Wilds… MY Wilds had hurt. They really suffered. I could feel their pain…}
{But how?! How does creatures that exist only in Dreamworlds feel anything? How would they even know what pain really is?!}
Raiki nudged him with her nose. [Calm down. You're going to give yourself a headache.]
"A headache would be the least of my concerns." Colin sat down again and looked Raiki in the eyes. "Raiki… what {are} you?"
Raiki sat down facing him. Her whiskers twitched. [A stormcat juvenile, last I checked. You can scan me again if you want.]
"That's not what I meant. I mean… in a Dreamworld like this… all the Wilds and Comrades are… well… alive. Sort of." Colin scratched his head. "I mean… what are Comrades?"
[What are Dreamers? What are Travelers?] Raiki asked right back.
"We're humans who wear the Dreamworlds Headset when we go to sleep. All of this happens in our dreams." Colin gestured around. "It's… not real."
[What is 'real'?] Raiki asked.
"Things that we can see, and touch, and feel…" Colin trailed off, staring.
Raiki said no more, simply letting him gape.
{I can see her. I can touch her. I can feel her. Raiki… is 'real'. Dreamworlds… in a way… is real.}
"But it's not… {permanent}. Whatever happens here… it can be reset, just like that. When we die here, we just respawn." Colin struggled with issues he'd never even considered before. "I mean…"
[Slow down.] Raiki said again. {You don't have to figure out everything all at once. The mysteries and truths of all universes can wait, 42 or otherwise.]
"Huh?" Colin was blur. "What do you mean, 42?"
[Never mind.] Raiki padded over and sat on Colin's lap. Colin found himself stroking her quite naturally. [We are friends. That's what matters, in the end.]
"Friends." Colin went on stroking Raiki, feeling the soft fur, and the slight electric tingle of the Stormcat's aura. "I guess we are, at that. That's what 'Comrades' mean, right?"
[Something like that. We don't need to get technical.] Raiki purred. [Let's just take things as they come.]
"It's a nice thought, Raiki, but I can't." Colin said. "I've got to do something. I can't just wait for them to find me and then just run away again."
[What do you intend to do? Hunt them?]
Colin thought about that.
"Yeah."
