Chapter 9 – Carnage

Dream called it a Gladiator battle because that's how the wolves treated it. 

Barks of excitement sounded out as they were certain of their prey's death. They created a ring and boxed Dream in. 

They didn't all pounce on him to kill him quickly, but sent in pairs or trios to attack. If Dream wasn't faster by a certain margin, he would have fallen due to the numerical disadvantage. But he was able to manage.

Dream would hold one off with his left arm and attack with the knife in his right. He used any means available to go through each one. He grabbed their fur and threw them away. Sliced at their legs, cutting them off. Punching them in the snout. Or just straight up stabbing them through the neck.

One thing he quickly learned was that you didn't have to kill them to disable them. If he sliced off a wolf's leg, it was done. It wouldn't be able to fight him so he didn't worry about killing it. 

After the wolves took about 12 casualties, the leader finally appeared. 

"...Ah, shit."

An exasperated curse was Dream's response to it approaching him. He knew he couldn't handle this the same way as the others.

The leader was at least 4 feet tall and had pitch black fur, a contrast to the other wolves that had brown fur. It had deep green eyes that stared straight at Dream. Its claws were razor-sharp and its teeth looked like sabers. 

When it approached, all the other wolves quieted down. It stood about 8 feet away from Dream as they stared at each other. 

As they stared at each other, Dream was preparing for a plan he had come up with on the spot. He knew he wouldn't be able to beat this thing head on, so he summoned out a weapon.

'Savant. I want a pound of c4 in my right hand and a detonator on the left.'

Dream actually dropped his knife and put both his hands behind his back. The wolf took that as a sign of surrender, but it wasn't planning to spare Dream. It walked towards him while growling and closed the distance.

The bag of explosives was summoned in his hand moments later, as well as the detonator. He then tossed it out right next to the wolf.

"Ballistic Shield."

Speaking to Savant, a thick shield appeared in his hands and Dream crouched down to cover himself with it. He then pressed the button not he detonator.

*Click!*

*BOOMM!!*

A loud explosion burst next to the wolf leader and threw Dream into the air who was only a couple of feet away. Dream was thrown back a couple of meters before landing against a tree.

*thud*

"Ack!"

He hit it with a thud and tensed up, looking up at all the wolves to see what happened right after. 

The wolf leader's body was nowhere to be seen. The other wolves in the vicinity were unlucky and had gotten caught in the blast. Whimpering was coming from over 10 wolves who were within the blast radius but not killed.

Dream stood up and spoke to Savant.

'Savant. Gimme a 40-pound block of the same c4. '

[Confirmed]

A square package and remote appeared on the floor. He put down the shield and picked up the block, hurling it over to the blast site. He then picked up the remote and shield and began walking away.

The wolves were already submissive because their leader died. And when Dream had tossed out the package, it spooked some of them. But once they realized nothing was happening, they got curious and walked closer to the package. Others were walking to the blast area to chew on the various remains as well. 

When Dream had gotten far enough away without alerting the wolves, he placed his shield in front facing the explosives. He then clicked the button on the remote.

*BOOOSH*

*RING!*

A pillar of fire lit up the forest bright as day for a couple of seconds before turning to smoke. In the process, it also blew Dream's ears out, causing intense ringing. Though it was worth it. Dream was absolutely sure all of them were dead now.

After that, a wave of exhaustion came over him. However, this wasn't the time to collapse from tiredness.

"Savant. Take me to the cabin."

Dream got up and began walking the way Savant told him to. 

After walking for a long time, he saw that the sun was rising. It was morning. Luckily, he soon spotted the house and continued hobbling toward it.

When he was approaching the house, he spotted the family standing outside of it, as if waiting for him. The girls watched him approach with shock on their faces.

Dream's body was basically dyed red. Blood and some small chunks of flesh were on his body. His armor was torn to pieces and exposed flesh with deep wounds could be seen. The wounds were even bleeding, causing blood to further soak his clothes.

Dream stopped a short distance from them. He said two words.

"I'm sorry."

He then fell to his knees and flat on his face as he passed out. 

"Dream?!"

"Dream!"

.................

...........

......

*grunt*

As Dream slowly woke up, he grunted as he was supposed to be in lots of pain. Though when he flexed his muscles, he found that he was feeling surprisingly good. He raised his left hand which was supposed to have a hole in it.

"Huh, I'm healed. And...Luna?"

Dream looked down as he felt something on his chest and there Luna was. She was in her fox form sleeping with her head resting on his chest. 

"Oh, I am so going to enjoy this."

Not being a dumbass and throwing out this chance, Dream ever so slowly moved his arms and scoot down a bit, getting Luna closer to him. He put his arms around her body and brought her in for a hug.

When he felt her fur, he amazed at how soft it was. He smiled and cuddled even more, wanting to play with her fur.

One of the things Dream is proud of is his mastery of petting animals like cats. And Luna in her fox form isn't much different than a cat, so he went to town.

He ran his fingers over the crown of her head and traced around the ears. Animals like cats and dogs have very sensitive ears, but if you work around the base of them and keep it gentle, they love it. 

Dream pet every millimeter of her head before moving down. He scratched the scruff, if they even had one, and moved his nails slowly down the spine. He repeated, scratch and pet, pet and scratch.

Dream couldn't do much more like rub her belly because this isn't a cat, but Luna. So he just kept running his nails through her soft, silky fur. After a minute or so of doing that he felt something change. He could feel Luna's heart beat a little faster and harder. Some muscles in her body also tightened up, but she kept her eyes closed. This obviously meant that she woke up, but wanted to pretend otherwise.

'Oh my god, you are so freaking CUTE! Hehe, just relax and enjoy my scratches.'

Dream's heart melted from her adorableness and kept on petting her. He stroked her with his hand and kept bringing her deeper into his embrace. After half an hour of petting and subtle shifting, her head was on his shoulder pressed up against his cheek and her body was up against his side. This was the most comfortable position they could get in.

Luna was also totally relaxed and into it. If she were a cat, she would be purring in happiness.

They stayed like that for another half an hour, enjoying each other's comfort, before getting interrupted by a shout.

"Hey Luna! How is Dream doing?" (Riddick)

Riddick called out to her from the living room and she decided it would be best to 'wake up' now.

She opened her eyes but was met with the deep grin on Dream's face. She just got up as there was no use pretending, transforming back into her human form.

Luna's face was apple red as she looked away and asked

"How are you feeling?"

"Oh I'm doing really good. How about yourself?"

Dream's smile deepened and Luna's face turned even redder in embarrassment. She answered back while looking at the floor.

"I'm fine. We should go to the kitchen."

Dream's heart took a critical hit from all that cuteness and got up. When he looked at himself though, he saw that he was only in his underwear. 

"Oh? Did you strip me?"

"N-No! We just couldn't figure out how to take off your armor so I had to cut it off with my ice. But dad took the clothes off!"

"Ok ok, I gotcha. One question though. Has your dad called out to check on me like that before?"

"Uhh... No..."

"So we got caught."

"I...Ughhh"

Luna hit maximum redness when she figured it all out. Meanwhile, Dream summoned some athletic shorts and threw them on.

When they left the room, Dream handed Luna a bag of sour patch kids. She took the bag with a 'thanks' and started munching on the candy, which dissipated some embarrassment.

They entered the living room that only had a table and chairs and met face to face with Iris and Riddick. 

Riddick had a complicated look on his face, but Iris didn't even meet his gaze. 

"How are you feeling, Boy? Your wounds look closed up. And you're walking which is good."

"I'm doing well. Still sore everywhere, but good."

"Alright, then next question. What the hell went on last night?"

"....I'm guessing you saw my battleground."

"Of course I did. I also heard that explosion during the night. When I found out how far it was, I was shocked. What was that?"

Apparently Riddick had gone out to check out what exactly put Dream in that state. And after hearing his questions, the girls got curious.

"Wait what happened? Did Dream do something?" (Luna)

"He painted the forest red, that's what." (Riddick)

"Huh?"

Luna and Iris both questioned him. 

"How about we go take a look. I didn't touch the weapons you dropped, Boy. So you can pick them up as we go." (Riddick)

"Alright."

All four people walked out of the house and towards the direction of the battleground. After a long while of walking, they arrived at the first scene of the battle.

"Oh my god..." (Iris)

"How did this happen?" (Luna) 

Both girls were shocked by what they saw. Corpses of wolves littered the area. The shocking part though was the state they were in. No corpse was intact and hundreds of chunks were splattered everywhere. Some trees were dyed red from blood splatter, and there were pools of blood all over the floor. Bullet casings could be found scattered all over the place as well as some craters on the floor.

"This seems to be the start of my battle."

"Boy, what kind of weapons did you use to do this? I very rarely see such forms of carnage." (Riddick)

"...Just some common weapons from my world."

"Common weapons? Meaning more people had those weapons?" (Luna)

"Uh-huh. Our weapons weren't pretty, considering they were designed to kill in every way possible."

Luna and Riddick both had on surprised faces. They couldn't imagine that weapons capable of such bloodshed were commonplace in his world.

"Let's keep walking." (Riddick)

Riddick spoke and they began following the path of blood. As they kept walking, they found cleaner kills than before. The corpses were spread out and had bullet holes, but were intact, clearly having been killed by his AR. They walked along the path for about 30 minutes before they started seeing the results of Dream's grenade frenzy.

Fallen trees, small craters, flesh chunks strewn about, and the occasional pile of shells from the grenades were seen as they walked. Dream actually found his AR and grenade launcher on the floor from when he dropped them. Though this meant that it was when he started using his shotgun.

*cough* *cough*

As they came across the bodies killed by the shotguns, Dream actually coughed in disgust. He turned away and started trying to keep his stomach fluids down.

He had known what he did last night, but he was hopped up on adrenaline and trying to survive, not to mention it was dark. But being clear-headed and seeing corpses with half their bodies looking like spaghetti really wasn't a nice sight. 

Both the girls also had to turn away. They had only ever hunted various animals in the dome. Sure they cut them up to eat but it was organized and practiced. This, however, was the very definition of brutality. And they weren't ready for the sight.

"Here's the weapon that I used for this area."

Dream found the shotgun and showed it to them. They got confused since it looked like his other gun, but that gun wasn't as brutal.

"How?" (Riddick)

"This shotgun fires a bullet that splits into smaller bullets, covering a wider area. The result of such is as you can see."

"...Let's keep moving." (Riddick)

Dream and the girls followed along while trying not to look at the bodies. They soon came up on the boss fight where Dream detonated those explosives.

It was actually pretty obvious and easy to find. You just had to look for the giant crater and scattered tree trunks.

"This is what I want to ask you about, Boy. What did you do here?"

All four people walked up the crater. There were no bodies, no blood, nothing. The plastic explosives cleared everything out when Dream activated it. He explained.

"I was eventually overrun and had to enter close combat with the wolves. That's when they surrounded me and I started fighting them off. After a couple of fights, the pack leader came out and challenged me. I used something called a grenade and killed it with that."

"Whats a grenade? Is that like a bullet?" (Riddick)

"No. Here, I can show you. Just take these shields."

Dream summoned out Shields and gave each of them one. He then summoned a grenade.

"Take a look. This green object is called a grenade. When this circle is pulled and I let go of it, It will explode. Watch it from behind the shields. Just copy me."

Dream crouched down and covered himself with the shield while the others followed his example. He then pulled the pin and tossed the grenade far away.

*BOOOMMM*

The grenade exploded, scaring some birds and kicking up some dirt. The sound echoed through the forest and made everybody's ears ring.

"That's an incredible object, but that's not what made this crater."(Riddick)

"I know. After I killed the Leader with that grenade, I tried to leave but was worried about the wolves continuing their attack. I used something called a bomb and left it in the middle of the group. I then sneaked away and blew it up from far away. That bomb is what caused all this, as well as the sound you heard last night."