Taro stared, utterly lost for words. The sheer, casual power radiating from the man under the wide-brimmed straw hat was overwhelming. Holy shit. This guy... he's frickin' powerful as hell. Ungh. I don't think I can stand right. This is insane.
From under the shadow of his kasa, Mexus noticed Taro's odd, wide-eyed look. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice a lazy drawl. "I know you've never seen a Senior Dremapol before, but it shouldn't trigger that kind of reaction." He took a single, casual step closer.
It was like a switch flipped. The ambient power radiating from him intensified, centering on Taro as if the gravity around him had increased a hundredfold. The pressure was immense, physical, slamming him down to his knees. The brim of Mexus's hat seemed to cast a deeper, heavier shadow.
"Ugh—" Taro tried to speak, but the air was too thick to breathe.
As suddenly as it came, the pressure vanished. The excessive energy flowing around Mexus disappeared back into whatever depths it came from. "Wow. Well, I guess you really are still a young Dremapol," Mexus said, sounding almost apologetic as he adjusted his hat. "Sorry for testing you like that." He turned his back, giving Taro a moment to recover.
Suddenly, Mexus produced a small, crystalline device that hummed with a soft inner light, similar to a cell phone. "Hey, Central? Yeah," he said, the phone tucked between his shoulder and ear as he tilted his kasa back. "I'll need you to get a gate linked over here. ...Yeah. ...Thanks." He hung up, the device vanishing from his hand.
"Who the hell was that?" Taro asked, using his Reibone as a crutch to push himself back to his feet. His legs were still wobbly.
"The Dream Society. I asked them to link the Inter-Dream Gate to our location." Mexus frowned, the shadow from his hat obscuring his eyes as he looked around at the empty air. "Although it shouldn't take this long. I'm sincerely wondering what the problem is."
"Aren't you being a bit impatient?" Taro asked. "I mean, dude, you just called them."
"Even still," Mexus's voice dropped into a comically serious, self-important ramble. He tapped the side of his hat. "I'm a pretty big guy over there. They shouldn't keep someone of my stature waiting like this. It's a matter of principle, you see? The paperwork alone for this kind of delay—"
"Unghhhhh," Taro groaned, utterly speechless at the tantrum.
Mexus's voice snapped back to its normal serious tone, though his face remained hidden. "No. It shouldn't be taking this long. Something's wrong."
"Well, is there any other way to get to the dream world?" Taro ventured. "We could try changing dreamscapes by getting into another person's dream. I'm pretty sure that's the only way I can do it at my current level, anyway."
"Alright then," Mexus said, a plan forming. He tipped his hat forward. "Let's go haunting."
Taro immediately started walking off with a silly, exaggerated ghost-walk, completely in the wrong direction. "OoooOOOooo—"
"Hold on, you dumbass!" Mexus yelled, the brim of his kasa flipping up as he stopped him. "I didn't even tell you how to get there!"
Mexus shifted into full teacher mode. "Sit down. Listen." He sat cross-legged, his hat settling into a peaceful silhouette. "We're gonna do a little training. You have hidden potential, but you suck at control. You can't even turn Dremapol without that green pill I gave you." His voice took on a slightly ominous tone from under the straw brim. "But I am surprised you haven't felt the side effects... yet."
"Wait, there are side—a—what now?" Taro asked, a spike of worry shooting through him.
"Anyway!" Mexus said, brushing it off with a wave. "There are two ways to do this. We could try making a dimensional slash to connect this dreamscape to a random one, but you probably wouldn't be able to do it."
"Whatever, man, just tear it open already," Taro said with a duck face.
"Nah. I want something we can both do. Besides, it would do you more good than me." Mexus crossed his arms, his hat tilting. "So here's the plan: We're gonna leave this dreamscape but maintain our dream bodies. We'll go to the waking realm, then project ourselves into a new dreamscape via someone else's sleep. Hopefully, we don't encounter any Nightdax along the way." He let out a weary sigh from the depths of his hat. 😮💨
"Hey, wait, I don't know how to do any of that stuff!" Taro informed him.
"That's exactly why we're doing it," Mexus said, a radical smile just visible beneath the shadowed brim.
Taro tried to protest. "But I—"
"Well, see ya in the wake realm!" Mexus didn't wait. He simply took a step and jumped backward, his form and his straw kasa phasing through the ground as if it were water and disappearing.
"Wait!!!! Mexus! Ugh, he's already gone." Taro stopped talking, knowing he probably couldn't be heard. He was alone.
Taro took a few steps back, ran, and launched himself toward the ground in a dramatic dive.
THUD.
Of course,things don't always work out for Taro. He just landed hard on the unyielding surface.
[Two Hours Later]
"What am I gonna do? I've been here for hours, but I still can't get out of here!" Frustrated, he punched the ground, but something felt fundamentally wrong. It wasn't the ground; it was him.
He remembered Mexus's words, echoing in the silence. "You suck at controls." "You can't even turn Dremapol."
Taro got angry for a second, his green energy flickering wildly. Then he stopped. He took a deep breath. You know what, Mexus? You are absolutely correct.
He let all his anger go. Freeing his mind, he took a meditating stance, focusing on calming his chaotic thoughts and wrestling the wild energy inside him. For an extremely quiet ten seconds, he focused. Then he felt it—a coolness spreading through his core. The chaotic green energy smoothed into a steady, controllable flow.
Taro got up, feeling more relaxed and calm than he had in days. He looked at the ground for two full seconds, completely sure of himself. Then, he simply let himself fall forward.
This time, he didn't hit. He phased through, the sensation like sinking through cool, thick water.
[Awake World]
Mexus had been sitting in a chair in Taro's apartment, his famous straw kasa hat tipped down over his face as if he'd been dozing for hours. The hat tilted up the moment Taro's dream-body materialized in the room.
"Well, look who's finally here," Mexus said, his voice a muffled tease from under the brim. "I thought you were gonna take an eternity. Any longer and I woulda left you." He pushed the hat back on his head, revealing a laid-back grin, and punctuated his sentence by hitting Taro's back repeatedly in a rough, friendly gesture. "But even still, I am surprised you got out and maintained your dream body. Hehehe!"
"Unghhh," Taro grunted, swatting at him.
Mexus strode to the window and threw it open, the night air ruffling the loose strands of his hair under the hat. "Well, we should be going now. Time to find a sleeper."
But before Mexus could jump, Taro called out to him. "Hey, wait, Mexus."
"Yeah?" he asked, pausing on the windowsill and glancing back. "What's wrong?"
"Thanks a lot," Taro said, a genuine, grateful smile on his face.
Mexus smiled and quickly turned his face away, adjusting his hat to hide it. "Tsk. Dumbass. What are you talking about?"
"It's nothing," Taro said, still smiling.
After three seconds of comfortable silence, Taro suddenly lunged, delivering a powerful kick that sent Mexus tumbling out the window with a yelp, his straw hat spinning comically in the air for a second before he snatched it.
"Well, last one to find a dreamer's a rotten Dremapol!" Taro yelled, leaping out after him onto the rooftop.
"Rotten Dremapol? What the hell you're just making up things now , get back here!" Mexus's indignant shout echoed through the night as he landed, firmly planting his kasa back on his head and giving chase across the rooftops.
"Hehehe! Hehehe!" Taro laughed, the sound full of pure, unadulterated joy, genuinely having a good time for the first time in a long, long time.