Chapter Text
Start of prologue:
The dream chasers entered the dream world like usual. They waited at the landing for Mr. Oz and Albert to take them wherever they have to save dreamers at. For a while Phil has lived on their landing because Nightmare king and his army wrecked the castle completely.
Speaking of the Nightmare king, he did something absolutely unthinkable 2 weeks ago. He took Z blob and used him to enter the waking world for his own selfish need to conquer it. He, at some point, was an actually good person: he was Lunia's little buddy Migo. The two of them were best friends until she couldn't spend time with him as much due to her duties as a Dreamkeeper. He tried to contain her so that they will be together forever, but fortunately for us (and unfortunately for him) she prevailed and created an entire realm to contain him from hurting dreamers like you, the reader and me, the narrator.
Unfortunately, over time, Migo, now the Nightmare king, has been freed from his containment and caused havoc across the dream world. Luckily, the dream chasers defeated him and closed the rift, sacrificing Z Blob in the process, sadly.
....However.... There have been reports of the rift still being open. And the rift was growing and growing as the nights go on. People in the dream world can now see glimpses of the waking world. And now that is what the dream chasers are looking forward to stop, once and for all.
Their teacher has finally arrived with the space bus. All of them now seated, the space bus took off. "There have been reports of rifts evolving into large openings and absorbing everything that's close to them!" Albert alerted. The dream chasers gasped in terror. Not even the rift Nightmare kings army got out through didn't have that sort of effect. Mr. Oz added: "According to the Night Bureau, no rift has absorbed a dream creature or dreamer near it. But from how things are going, that could soon be a reality."
"That's just so.. Horrible! We can't let any of this go on much longer!" Mateo said.
"Mr. Oz, is there any way we can stop the rifts from multiplying at least temporarily?" Izzie asked.
"I'm afraid there's currently none, Isabel. Until the Night Bureau doesn't give us an official answer, all we can do is save dreamers from being sucked in to wherever where." Albert answered, voice getting dark.
"This is so weird! You're telling me that us transforming Z Blob into a giant mech with Nightmare king INSIDE of it wasn't enough to close it? I put all of my imagination into that thing!" Logan said in his usual loud tone.
Cooper sat back in his seat, pondering at what Logan said. "It seems like all our powers did was contain the Nightmare king, not close the rift."
The rest of the trip went dead silent except for the sound of the engine. Mateo kept thinking about what Cooper said. They defeated the Nightmare king, sure, but he did lose his beloved buddy Z Blob in the process. He remembered being devastated for a few days after he had to leave him in the dream world. The fact that that didn't even resolve everything made him... Upset? Angry? He couldn't tell. And thinking about that day again made another question to fall upon him: what happened with Nighthunter? Last time he ever saw him was running from the scene while they trapped his boss.
Wherever he was right now, Mateo knew that he was probably up to no good.
Finally arrived, they quickly got out and met up with Zoey and Phil who got there way before they did. "Have you two seen anything?" Mr.Oz asked the aforementioned.
"Nope. There's no rifts here." Zoey answered while Phil just nodded his head 'no'.
Mateo catched something in the far corner of his vision. It was a dark shadowy figure speeding on a motorcycle. He immediately recognized him as:
"Nighthunter! Over there!" Mateo shout out, bursting into a chase after him. "Mateo!" Izzie yelled out, dreamcrafting Bunchu, chasing after Mateo. Shortly, the others followed suit after them.
Nighthunter was speeding to nowhere it seems. He had no business to attend to in the dream world anymore. From the moment his boss was imprisoned, he was a 'free' man. In fact, ever since that day there have been no sightings of any nightmare creature. Sneak was in the Night Bureau for a while for testing, but there has been no progress done to really get to the bottom of it.
He then stopped with a halt. He got off of his motorcycle and stared at the ground, looking for something. "We got you now, Nighthunter!" Mateo shout out, making the shadowy man look up from the ground. "It's none of your business, brats! Shouldn't you go save some dreamers, or something?". "We'll leave if you tell us what you're planning!" Cooper shout out.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them shook. A portal door emerged from the ground. It opened and started sucking in everything. Nighthunter was the first to get in. The dream chasers tried holding on to anything they could. Izzie was holding onto her older brother until they got sucked in. Logan quickly turned into his monster form, held onto the car and tried to hold Cooper with his super strength. His hand slipped and Cooper got sucked in too.
The portal closed; Leaving only 5 dream chasers left near that patch of grass, while 3 of them where in the middle of nowhere with the Nightmare king's lieutenant.