As soon as Sushi saw me step onto hallway tile, she nodded, then bolted straight at the ninjas. They took swings at her, but their nun chucks and bo staffs sliced through her like a ghost.

Warcry and Kest weren’t having the same luck. The black-clad attackers came at them from all sides. Kest shot out her chain weight and swung her machete and Warcry’s prosthetic pinged over and over again like a metal baseball bat, but there were too many ninjas. They were getting overrun.

A tall douchebag stepped into my path. “Hey, Grody—”

“I don’t have time for your crap today, Blaise.” I side kicked him into the lockers and kept going.

A trio of ninjas met me with nun chucks whirling. I summoned Death Metal instinctively and threw my arm up just before the wood cracked my skull. The first guy’s nun chucks thunked off my shield, but another one kneecapped me.

My leg folded, and I went down awkwardly, trying not to land on what I was pretty sure was a crushed patella and protecting my head with my shields.

Before the ninjas could get in another shot, I sent Three Corpse Sickness exploding off me.

Usually, my Corpses looked like humanoid blobs of Miasma with no clear features, but in the dream, they were exact copies of me, just blue-green and translucent, as if I’d had forever to perfect them and they were finally operating at top level power.

The ninjas backpedaled, dropping into defensive stances. Each of my Corpses readied a different Spirit attack, and I felt the Miasma being drawn from my Spirit sea. The first corpse wielded my dual shields ran at the ninja in the center. The second hit the guy on my right with Rigor Mortis, freezing him in place. My third Corpse ripped the last ninja’s life point out with Dead Man’s Hand.

Blue-white Spirit flashed and metal screamed. Just ahead of me, a whole bank of lockers ripped off the wall, tumbled across the tile, and crushed the remaining ninjas into a ball of metal and meat paste.

Kest lowered her real and cinnabar arms, letting the Metal Spirit she’d just used drop with them.

“Holy crap,” I said.

Kest shrugged. “It’s just a dream. Watch.”

She raised her hand again and balled her fingers into a fist. Suddenly all the metal benches and pipes in the walls ripped out and sucked toward one central point like they were being pulled into a black hole. With an ear-piercing scream like a mechanical T-rex being chewed up in the universe’s biggest blender, the scrap slammed into the ball of lockers and ninja paste.

I looked from the carnage to Kest and let out a low whistle.

“I can’t do that in real life,” she explained. “I’d have to have some sort of Gravity Spirit. But I can do it in the dream.” She pointed at my smashed kneecap. “Repair that and let’s go find my twin.”

As soon as she said it, I realized it didn’t even hurt like a real injury.

“Oh, uh, right.” I pictured sending a ton of Miasma to freeze the joint so I could stand on it, then realized that was stupid—it would take away that leg’s mobility and not even solve the problem. Instead, I imagined the knee popping back to perfect health.

Just like that, it was better. No healing script tattoo, no effort.

I hopped to my feet. “You’re a genius, Kest. Way to game the system.”

She blushed, black lace fading in on her cheeks again. “It’s just taking advantage of the opportunities put in front of you.”

“Little help?” Warcry yelled.

All the students in the hall were gone, and fifty more ninjas had taken their place. Even more black-clad warriors were running out from behind Kest’s locker ball like there was a magical portal on the other side. Warcry was trying to hold them off, but he couldn’t keep it up for long on his own.

“Got it,” I said, digging deep into my Spirit sea and sending out a tsunami of Miasma. “Mass Grave!”

The turquoise Spirit burst off me in a wave, dropping every ninja dead in their tracks. Fresh Miasma rose from their bodies, and I pulled it in, then started the Three Corpses cultivating their own Spirit seas, too, so they wouldn’t have to draw off mine next time.

Past them, Sushi was standing with one hand on the gym doors and waving the other at us to hurry up already.

We sprinted up the hall, hopping over ninja corpses and finally made it to her.

Sushi shoved open the gym door.

“Through!” she ordered, pressing her hands to the painted metal casing. “Save Rali!”

Kest charged through first, not waiting for anybody. Warcry and I followed half a step behind her.

I sat up, my heart racing like somebody had just slapped me awake.

I was in the canteen of the Eight-Legged Dragon’s transport ship, sprawled out in one of the hard metal chairs bolted to the floor. Rali and I had been cultivating here earlier. I must’ve fallen asleep. All the chairs except for mine and the one Rali had been using were stacked on the tables for the night, and the white lights had been lowered to create a sort of twilight glow. Kest and Warcry were gone, and Sushi was nowhere to be seen.

Shapes moved next to me.

“Be on your guard,” a haggard voice said. “The Lost Mirror world-walker shook the other three from my grasp.”

Creeping through the half-lit canteen was a group of beggars, dressed like the stereotypical ascetic gurus in threadbare loincloths. A couple of them were missing limbs, and one guy had huge masses of dreadlocks tied back from his face, exposing empty scarred-over eye sockets. Every one of them was carrying a walking stick.

Levitating along beside them was Rali, fast asleep and flat on his back like he was rolling on an invisible gurney. A bald beggar with liver-spotted arthritic hands limped alongside Rali, gray Air Spirit flowing from his palm down to my friend.

“Stop!” I lurched to my feet, my chair dumping over behind me. “Where are you going with him?”

“Stay out of this, child,” a beggar with one leg hobbled forward using his walking stick as a crutch. “We wish you no harm, but if you try to interfere, we will be forced to defend ourselves.”

The beggars spread out, surrounding the arthritic guy who was levitating Rali.

Running footsteps echoed down the hall from the sleeping quarters. Kest rounded the corner.

“Put him down!” she yelled, raising her metal prosthetic arm.

A chunk of cinnabar flew off the hand, stretching out into the rolling silver bolas she’d used during our Wilderness Territorial matches. The dreadlocked guy with the empty eye sockets sidestepped the chain and snatched it out of the air.

“Give me my brother back!” Kest grabbed the closest chair, ripping the bolts out of the flooring, and went Hot Metal. The air in the canteen turned into an inferno of invisible heat and the chair melted to slag in her hands.

“You do not understand, young one,” the blind beggar said.

But Kest wasn’t listening. With a flick of her wrists, she shot handfuls of molten slag at the beggars. They dodged and tried to knock the little burning bits of liquid metal away with their walking sticks, but the slag splattered wherever it landed. Skin sizzled and cloth and hair melted as the droplets ricocheted onto them.

The blind beggar gave a signal, and all these scrawny, missing-limb and -eyes dudes dropped into kung fu fighting poses.

Kest called out her machete again. I hit the Ki strength and speed enhancements, shooting into the fight to take some of the heat off her.

Warcry ran into the canteen just in time to see the Thunderdome erupt.

“Who’re these geezers?” he yelled when he caught my eye.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I don’t know, but they’re kidnapping Rali.” I threw out Death Metal to block a swing from the blind beggar’s walking stick. The force of the blow shoved me backward a good ten feet, my sneakers screeching on the canteen floor.

The Lunar Scythe probably would’ve been a better weapon against all these walking sticks, but I’d been trying to avoid it until I learned more about the devil corruption I took every time I used it.

Sushi swam over to my side, back in her fish form.

“Grady doesn’t fight!” she insisted. “Grady saves Rali! Go to Rali in Dream attack!”

“How?”

“Through!” She swam over to the shuttered window to the kitchen and pressed a little purple pectoral fin against it. “Go through!”

I glanced from the old, injured, blind beggars kicking Warcry and Kest’s butts to the solid metal shuttering pulled down over the window.

“But Rali’s right there,” I argued.

“No!” she yelled. “That Rali is lies! Real Rali is through! Go now, Grady, or Rali dies!”

My blood froze in my veins.

With one last look at Kest and Warcry, I turned and ran for the window. It took three shield bashes, but I finally broke the lock on the shutter. I shoved its dented, clanking metal up and dove through.

Instead of smashing face-first on the ship’s kitchen floor and busting out a bunch of my teeth, I slammed into a pile of bloody cadavers steaming in chilly winter air. The dead, lace-patterned eyes staring out of a nearby helmet made my heart stutter.

“Rali?”

The corpse pile shifted under me, and I braced myself on a headful of shaggy black hair. That was Rali, too. I jerked my hand back. Next to that head was another familiar chunky body, its guts cut to ribbons, leaking black Selken blood onto another dead heavyweight. I grabbed a helmet and ripped it off of a fourth Rali.

All the corpses were Rali. Him in various battle dress, all wielding different weapons, all cut down in a variety of ways.

Tripping and stumbling on the shifting flesh-surface under my feet, I picked myself up. Snow fell in big fat flakes across a field of cooling bodies who were all my best friend. An icy breeze carried the sound of fighting to me.

Up a low rise, an endless army of Ralis was attacking a single overweight guy with shaggy black hair, cutoffs, and a sleeveless shirt like a surfer dude who didn’t know it was the middle of winter.

“Rali!” The real one, I meant.

Either he couldn’t hear me or he didn’t have the breath left to respond. A pair of push daggers glinted on his fists as he fought, slaughtering his attackers. The blades ran with black blood and flung droplets of it whenever he moved. He was keeping them at bay for now, but there were too many of them and they were coming at him from all sides. Eventually, he was going to tire out and get killed.

I ran to back him up, but the squishy, uneven corpses kept shifting and rolling under my feet. It was like a nightmare.

I stopped suddenly, realizing what an idiot I was. It wasn’t like a nightmare, it was a nightmare. Rali’s.

With a thought, I made myself appear at my best friend’s side and shield-bashed a berserking version of himself trying to impale him on a shining katana.

“Hey, man, are you okay?” I yelled between attacks.

The real Rali whirled around. His shirt was soaked with sweat and blood, and his shaggy hair was matted with gore. His eyes were completely black, even the smallest bit of white absorbed into that lace pattern.

Fury. Hatred. Rage. Selkens’ eye lace was like a mood ring. It thinned out when they were afraid. It got thicker when they were angry or really happy and shifted from thick to thin when they were uncertain. I’d never seen either of the twins with completely black eyes, though. In real life, there was always some light in them.

“You!” His voice echoed across the battlefield like thunder.

Rali lunged at me. His blades rang as they sliced through the air, and it was all I could do to get a Death Metal shield between us before he planted one in my face. They thunked into the shield and scraped off. He snarled and stabbed and sliced.

“It’s me! It’s Hake!” I yelled, trying to stay on my feet as I backpedaled through the corpses. He wasn’t even using Spirit, and still I could barely keep up with his attacks. “Sushi sent me to get you out of here. Someone’s attacking us on the ship and trying to kidnap you. We’ve got to get back and help Warcry and Kest fight them off!”

Nothing I said got through. Rali screamed and kept throwing blades. I dodged, slamming out blocks with Death Metal. I didn’t want to hurt him. Obviously his mind was stuck in this nightmare. I had to find a way to convince him that none of this was real.

An axe came down on my shoulder from behind. Bone crunched and blood splashed my cheek. I’d been so focused on Rali that I’d forgotten about the army of fake Ralis surrounding us.

With a growl of frustration, I sent off a concussion blast of Miasma in a carefully focused Mass Grave, hitting every life point but myself, Rali, and Sushi. All around us, bodies thudded to the ground. The battlefield went deadly silent.

Rali came at me again, still pressing his attack. My foot caught on a body’s arm or leg, and I fell backward onto my butt. Rali lunged, the bloody points of the push daggers glinting in the light of the white and blue day suns.

Instinctively, I shoved Death Metal between us. The daggers scraped off, but that only seemed to make Rali angrier. He screamed through his teeth and flailed at me.

“I’m not here to fight you!” I yelled, putting my shoulder into the shield to brace it. “You’re my best friend, remember? I’m a screw-up, and you have to keep saving me, but for some reason you stick around. Probably because I haven’t read Ten Lightning Strikes Against the Hero yet, even though it would literally take about eight minutes.”

The attacks stopped. When I looked around the edge of my shield, Rali was glaring down at me, his dark eyebrows pinched and all-black eyes wide with hatred.

“You made me glad they were dead instead of us,” he snarled, pointing one push dagger at me like an accusatory finger. His shoulders heaved with shallow, furious breaths. “Hundreds of bodies, a Heartchamber full of life and Spirit destroyed in a second. It should’ve been devastating, but all I could think was at least we got to keep living. You did that. You made me evil and weak. You made me betray everything I believed in!”

Images of the carnage from the Heartchamber massacre bounced around inside my head crashing into stuff and breaking things.

“I know.” I swallowed hard, sick to my stomach. “It was my fault. I almost got Warcry killed, I got your Spirit sea broken, and you’re the one who has to deal with the fallout while I got away without a scratch. It’s completely unfair. I’m sorry.”

There was the thump of a body hitting the dirt, and when I looked around my hands, Rali was on his knees, blades stabbed through corpses into the ground, tears streaking the blood on his face. His big shoulders and stomach shook silently.

I let Death Metal drop. I didn’t know what to do. Rali was the most happy-go-lucky person I’d ever met. I’d seen him show like two emotions the whole time I’d known him, and nothing but contentment had lasted more than a few seconds. How long had he been pretending like we were cool when in reality he hated my guts? Just since he’d lost his Spirit sea in the massacre, or before that, when he had to sign his life away to the Dragons because of me? Or had it started even earlier, when I’d gotten his sister’s arm torn off? Heck, why not the night when I turned the OSS against them and they had to flee their hometown forever?

So much of the bad stuff that had happened to my friends had happened because of me. It should’ve been an army of Hakes dead on the ground.

A purple shimmer caught my eye from down the hill. Sushi was still holding the kitchen window portal open, her fins pressed to its metal sash, but her whole little fish body was shaking with the strain.

“Come on, man,” I said, standing up. “There’s a group of beggars in the real world trying to steal you. I think that’s what this whole dream attack thing is about. Kest and Warcry were holding them off when I left, but those guys were really skilled. We have to get back and help.”

Rali squinted at me, the lace in his eyes shifting. The tears had stopped.

“Beggars?”

I nodded, holding out a hand to help him up. “Old ones, ones who couldn’t see, ones missing limbs and no prosthetics…”

He frowned and grabbed my hand. I hauled him to his feet. We picked our way back across the bodies to the window and climbed through.

This time, I gasped awake on the sticky floor of the ship’s kitchen, with Sushi slumped across my arm like she was exhausted.

Out in the canteen, an elderly voice yelled, “I lost the chosen one!”

The sound of fighting stopped, except for one last smack of metal on meat.

“Ouch, please stop!” a beggar pleaded. “We give up!”

I picked Sushi up and grabbed the counter, pulling myself to my feet.

Out in the canteen, Kest and Warcry were facing down the beggars, who all stood with their hands clasped in front of them to show they were finished using their weapons. Rali still floated beside them, levitated by the arthritic old man.

“We were only fighting for our chosen one,” the old man insisted. “Without him, there is no reason to fight.

Rali sat up in midair and put his feet on the floor like he was sitting on a bed.

“You guys are from the Beggar Clan,” he said.

It hadn’t sounded like a question, but the blind man with the matted dreadlocks nodded. It seemed like he was their leader.

“We came to find the chosen one. You.”

Rali stood up, shaking his head. “I can’t be the chosen one.” He put a fist to his stomach, just above his navel. “My Spirit sea was destroyed. See for yourself.”

“This is how we know you are the chosen one,” the blind beggar insisted. “Only one who has known the power of Spirit but thrown off the shackles of its distraction can reach the final, purest state of enlightenment: hakkeyoi.”

“Why try to kidnap him, then?” Kest took an aggressive step toward them. “And why these dream attacks? If you weren’t going to hurt him, why not just talk to him face-to-face, like normal people?”

“We had to test whether he could truly handle the power that comes with hakkeyoi.” The beggars’ blind leader smiled at Rali even though he shouldn’t have been able to tell where the big guy was. “Your fear and past notions about right and wrong tried to gain control over you, chosen one, but you threw both off. You are truly prepared for enlightenment.”

Rali tipped back his head like he’d just figured something out something he should’ve known all along.

“Sushi?”

The little fish swam out of my hands and over to him.

“This is my dream, isn’t it?” he said.

She nodded with her whole body.

“Me achin’ leg,” Warcry muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “A dream inside a dream?”

“Like ten of them,” I said.

“How do we get out of it?”

“Can’t,” Sushi told him. “Dream Spirit still attacks.”

“I’m not technically attacking, little fish,” a smooth, cool female voice said. “Though you did an excellent job of countering it. Someday I’d love to hear how a creature managed to cultivate a Ten-level specialization, but I suppose we should get acquainted first.”

The beggars vanished without a trace, and a thin blonde in a charcoal business suit appeared where their leader had been standing. She was flat as a board all over—literally flat, in the sense that, from head to toe, her body was the regular width from shoulder to shoulder, but only about three inches deep, like a piece of wood planking. She looked as if someone had taken a regular lady and rolled her out flat. Her nose barely stood out as a bump on the front of her face, and a surgical mask covered it and her mouth.

“Sanya-ketsu, Eight-Legged Dragons rank 002, Sown Dream Cultivator.” She dipped her head at us. “I’m going to release you kids from the dream so we can have a proper chat.”

She pulled her flat hands out of her pockets. She was wearing a pair of blue surgical gloves. They made a rubbery sound as she flicked her fingers at us.

A tiny thread snapped inside my skull, then everything went black.