Through the Looking Glass: Chapter 1-B
First Dream
Banjo felt himself floating in a great void, the edges of it blaring with lights and colors that somehow did not hurt his eyes. The honey bear was rather awed by this; most of his dreams usually involved anything ranging from nightmares of Tooty's fate through dreams of adventuring with Kazooie to fight Grunty once again to incredibly strange dreams involving some Xbox 360 game or another. Whatever he dreamt, he usually did not dream of a large void on which nothing could be seen.
This in turn confused the honey bear a little. Feeling his shoulders and finding that he was without his blue backpack (and subsequently of Kazooie's company), and also noticing that his feet seemed to be planted on solid floor despite the lack of a visible floor, he looked around. Orbs of sapphire were then looking all around the void for any sign of anybody else as he suddenly walked forward, even more surprised that he was in control of his actions.
"Hello?" he called out into the void, beginning to feel a little frightened by these prospects. "Is anybody there?"
The bear did not receive a reply, and he scratched the tuft on his head a little as he looked around. Somebody had to be in this void, and Banjo was scarcely ever one to wonder when people would show up.
"Hello?" he asked once again, just to make sure that he was not alone.
"Huh? Who's there?"
A female voice was suddenly heard from the void. This sent Banjo looking around, his body moving along with his head as he turned around to get a good view all around him. He saw nobody around him when he did this, however, so he simply brought his hands to his mouth.
"Hello?" asked Banjo, staggering around a little as he called out into the void. "Where are you?"
"Huh?" asked the same female voice again. "Who're you?"
Before Banjo could reply, he suddenly felt something touch his shoulder from behind him. Startled, the honey bear jumped back and looked behind him to find a female bat standing behind him wearing a most peculiar jumpsuit with a heart-shape on her chest. Banjo said nothing at first, simply looking at the female bat who had appeared in his dream.
"Me?" inquired the bear simply. "I'd worry more about you! What're you doing in my dream?"
"What're you doing in my dream?" replied the bat, pointing first at the bear and then at herself as her other hand brushed over one of her ears. "That's what I want to know!"
"So you're dreaming this too?" said Banjo, regarding this with a slight nod. "So I guess we're dreaming each other..."
"I guess..." said the bat. "Where are we, anyway?"
"I'm not sure..." Banjo looked to his sides as he said this, the colors still in the distance as he and his bat companion both seemed to stand on the air. "We'll have to figure that out. I'm Banjo, by the way."
The bear held his hand out to the bat as if to offer a handshake. Shyly, the female bat took the hand and shook it gently.
"Rouge," she said. "Rouge the Bat. A pleasure."
Banjo could have sworn the smile that Rouge had given him as they shook hands meant something not entirely pleasurable, but he simply shrugged it off as it was a friendly smile and he was never one to doubt the word of others.
"So, what're you doing here?" asked the bear.
"Oh, I don't know..." said Rouge, pacing around on the air as Banjo watched her every move. "I just went to bed, and here I am, in your dream."
"Same here," replied Banjo with a shrug. "I dunno, though... This is way too wierd, you know?"
The bat simply shrugged, her wings twitching slightly as the bat stopped moving, her back to Banjo.
"Trust me, it can't be any wierder than the stuff I've seen in my life," replied the bat. "Interdimensional portals, hoverboard races, jewels that reconstruct themselves... I've seen a lot, I can tell you that. So this is probably nothing special."
Banjo simply chuckled at this, causing Rouge to send a glance in his direction, topaz eyes shining in confusion.
"Trust me, what you've seen can't be any wierder than an evil witch that fights you with a board game and a quiz show," he said in reply. "Also, she managed to stay alive for eight years even though she was literally a skull trapped behind a pile of rocks."
Rouge looked a little flabbergasted at this revelation, and then she looked down at the void below them, her wings beating uncertainly.
"Point taken," she said sheepishly. "What kind of witch fights you with a board game?"
"Don't ask me," replied Banjo with a shrug. "I was the game piece..."
The bat raised one of her eyebrows at this, her ears perked up as she looked at the honey bear perplexedly.
"Huh," she said with a shrug. "You have any idea what might be doing this?"
"I'm not sure, Ms. Rouge..." replied Banjo as he scratched his chin. "I think I might know something, but I'm not sure..."
"Oh, please, just call me Rouge. That 'Ms.' stuff makes me feel like an old lady!" The bat walked over to Banjo in her own peculiar way, her hand on her hip as she looked at Banjo. "You think you could find that out, hun?"
Banjo noticed something seductive in Rouge's tone of voice, but he ignored it, thinking nothing of it.
"I was planning to even before this dream," he said simply. "I've also got a friend who can make people lose weight by wishing it; I'll be he'll know something..."
Rouge once again gave the bear a confused glance before shrugging and pacing around again with that walk that Banjo found to be one of the most suggestive things he had ever seen in his life.
"You really have seen some really wierd things in your life," she said, shaking her head with a nervous smile hanging on her lips. "And I have a mad scientist type that I know, so maybe I can ask him..."
Banjo raised his eyebrow in confusion. "A mad scientist type?" asked the bear. "Are you sure you should tell him?"
"Why not?" asked the bat with a shrug. "I'm working for him right now as it is, so I'm sure one small question can't hurt."
As soon as he heard this sentence, Banjo tensed in a way that Rouge could hardly tell he was stressed by what she said.
"I... I wouldn't know if it's a good idea..." he said. "I mean, what if he plans to take over the world?"
Rouge glanced over to the side quickly, this small question sending a doubt shooting up her spine.
"You're right..." she said softly. "I mean, he is trying to take over the world..."
"Aha!" shouted Banjo, pointing a finger at her accusatorily. "So you would tell him, right?"
Rouge simply scratched the back of her ear, sighing at this. "Well, to be perfectly honest, I haven't been a fan of his with everything he does..." she said. "I'll wait and see what goes on with his latest plan, and if I dislike what he does with it I won't say anything about this. I mean, I'm only in it for the money he promised, you know?"
"Fine," said Banjo, holding his hands up in a relenting gesture. "I just hope you know what you're doing..."
"Oh, trust me, I know what I'm doing," replied Rouge with a giggle. "There is a reason why I'm a professional treasure hunter after all..."
Banjo raised his eyebrow once again at this, deciding not to talk much about it.
"Right," he said simply. "This is only a dream, though, right? I mean, we could forget everything we talked about here..."
"Well, if we're both making sense here, then there must be something else," said Rouge with a shrug as she stood still, her back to Banjo.
"I wonder..." said Banjo. "If this is a dream, when do we go back to the real world?"
"Eh, we'll see..." said Rouge. "It's probably abrupt like an actual dream..."
"Maybe," said the bear with a shrug. "I wonder--"
Banjo opened his eyes and sat up in his bed ever so slowly. The sun was shining through his window, and then he gazed out of it, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as his gaze turned to the jewel on the night table.
Looking at it, the details of his dream suddenly came back to him, and then he looked at the jewel with a puzzled expression on his face before shrugging.
"What a strange dream..." he thought aloud, looking out of the window again.
"Hey, sleepyhead, get outa bed!" cried Kazooie's voice from the doorway. "I've been waiting for breakfast!"
This alarmed Banjo as he realized that he had overslept again. The bear promptly jumped out of the bedsheets, running into the adjoining kitchen and rummaging through the cabinet the way he would every time he overslept.
"Sorry, sorry!" he shouted, his hands falling on Kazooie' birdseed as he pulled it out of the cupboard.