CHAPTER II
THE PAX ARMISTICE CENTENNIAL FESTIVAL

SOUNDTRACK- The Centennial Festival
        It was noon when Janus escorted Audrey up to the Centennial Festival, set up in the heart of the Antilia village. Thousands of balloons were tied to wooden posts stuck into the park, where the fair was held. The park was huge, grass and scattered trees spread all over its huge area. That day, the park’s grass was covered with tents and stage platforms. Magicians performing magic tricks, fortune tellers, games, food stands, rides, the whole works. Happy, cheerful music played from several bands scattered all across the park. The festival had been going on for two days, and it was still turning out great with countless people from all all over.
        Janus tied up his new zark to a post on the edge of the park, and was angered when he found out that he had to purchase a ticket worth twenty gold to get in! Audrey hesitated, staring at Janus as they stood there at the ticket booth. Annoyed by Janus’s ignorance, she paid for her own ticket.
        “You are right, Janus.”
        “Yeah?” he said, handing his ticket to the gate-keeper of the festival.
        Audrey frowned as she took him by the hand and they walked into the festival. “You’re no gentleman!”
        Janus was on a mission to find supplies for his journey to Mensa. All of the merchants left their shops and set up at the festival. He had to come here for his supplies. Already, the festive music had begun to annoy the young man. He felt very stupid with Audrey, regardless he had some sort of feeling towards her. He was a warrior, not an escort! What was he doing walking around with this woman at some dumb fair? He had blood to spill, revenge to satisfy.
        Janus walked away from Audrey to a merchant’s tent. When she noticed he was not following her, Audrey began to follow him. After purchasing several items, Janus stuffed them into his brown-leather bag and went back for his zark. Audrey became fed-up after following him in silence for nearly a half an hour.
        “Hey, you jerk!” she said as she slugged him one in the arm.
        “What?” He turned around, greatly annoyed.
        “I came here to have fun and your spoiling it!” Janus stared at her, then boasted a tiny grin of amusement. He turned again and walked away.
        “Where are you going?!?” She said, tugging on his arm.
        He turned around once more and sardonically smirked, “I’m leaving. I don’t want to spoil your fun.”
        Audrey wanted to say that she wanted him there, but it wouldn’t have seemed right- especially in light of Janus’s difficult “whatever” attitude. “Fine, Janus,” Audrey said after what seemed like an eternity of annoying music in the background and silence between the two. “You do that.”
        “Right.” He turned back and left her there.
        Audrey’s jaw dropped. She extended her arm, but it was already too late. “Wait...”

SOUNDTRACK- Cevo’s Theme
        The island in the southwestern corner of the world was rather large with colossal mountains. This island was only known as The Crafter’s Island. The Crafter himself was a short, round man who was very happy with his life. Being the richest man on the planet, The Crafter owned the entire piece of land floating in the Narita Ocean. He had built an entire legion of robots to mine the mountains full of resources.
        The Crafter was a genius, acclaimed by everyone as the most skilled inventor in the world. The kingdom of Tucanna especially loves him, for that kingdom is a very industrialized society and requires better machines and robots to work the factories. His ancestor’s wild imagination and vast knowledge of machinery has also lead them to invent the aqua-hovercrafts, which replaced traditional wooden sail-ships because of their speed and easy handling. The Crafter is actually whoever is currently the oldest in the family.
        At the base of the mountains, The Crafter’s cozy little hut expelled smoke from the chimney. Inside, he was enjoying a plate of steak he had recently grilled sitting happily by the fire. The round man warmed his sock-covered feet near the flames, as he chewed. “Hmm...” He grunted, looking puzzled. “Need’s more sauce!” He turned his head and called, “SE3-VO!”
        A bulky metal robot came walking into the living room. His huge metal feet clanked onto the plank floor. He made a standard robot noise every time he spoke, “Hmmzt. Yes, sir?”
        “Will ya’ fetch me some sauce, rust bucket?” he joked, shoveling in another bite.
        “Hmmzt. Certainly, my Lord.” The robot’s synthesized voice was very deep and rich.
        “Life is great!” The Crafter called with a mouthful of steak. “Life is great! HA HA!! HA!!”

SOUNDTRACK- The Centennial Festival
        Janus walked out to his zark. The music was less intense in volume (which was of great relief to him). He tied his bag of items he recently purchased to the saddle of the huge animal and thought about Audrey.
        Why didn’t you talk to her when you were a kid, Janus? he thought, as if repeating his question in an answering tone. Because you had your head up in the clouds like you do now!!!
        He stormed back up to the booth and paid for another ticket! “Forty gold!” He shouted to himself, as he handed the ticket to the Gate-Keeper.
        “Have fun,” the Gate-Keeper said, opening the gate to let him in.
        “Oh I will,” Janus grunted. “I better for forty gold!” He walked back into the thick crowd of people. He gazed at thousands of people and hundreds of tents and platforms. “What was I thinking? I’ll never find her in this.”
        Janus made his way to the center of the park before giving up. “This is ridiculous- I could be halfway to Truce by now. Where is she?!?” he said under his breath, just as he noticed the music was not as loud as before. He realized he was standing in font of a stage platform that was about to put on a show of some kind.
        Out walked tall, bald man with flabby cheeks in a dark blue suit. He cleared his throat and adjusted his round, thin-framed glasses. The man stood in front of what looked like a thin chair covered in white sheets. “Ladies and gentleman!” he called. “I have something new from the people that brought you blue skies back!”
SOUNDTRACK- No Music
        The music instantly stopped. The crowd froze. Janus didn’t know why everyone’s attention was immediately drawn to this man from his simple sentence, but Janus was intrigued to find out.
        “My name is Nehmald. The Intarma-Reactor your hard-earned tax-paying money provided last year has cleared the scorched skies from the war, purified the land- finally allowing crops to return, and prevented evilness from consuming the planet once again. This fair is held in honor of a hundred years since the end of that war. So, we have developed something new for everyone- an asset to the reactor your King approved. It is called the DreamSeed machine!” Nehmald pulled off the white sheets, revealing the chrome-coated chair. “The chair of your dreams, ladies and gentleman!”
        The crowd gasped.
        “Now let me ask you all this one, simple question. Who would like to be the first human to fly?” After a few moments of silence, the crowd burst into shouting volunteers. Nehmald picked a middle aged man. His name was Toma, and he worked as a well-known carpenter at Antilia’s village. Janus watched curiously.
        “I shall put this headset on you, and you will fall asleep.” Nehmald said to Toma, loud enough for everyone to hear. He picked up a chrome coated helmet with hundreds of cables running out of it. They were all bound together in a thick bundle. “I will upload the dream of flying into your mind. When I take the headset off, you shall fly for five minutes!” Toma shook his head and sat down in the large, metallic chair. The cables connected to a huge box which was the fuel transistor. This had a much larger cable running out of the park, to the distant reactor.
        Once Toma had the headset on, Nehmald turned a circular knob on the side of the chair. Instantly, the fuel transistor gave off a strange hum and a glow of yellow, as so did the cord and the headset itself. Toma sat there, his entire body eventually glowing yellow, as if he was being charged with something...
        Nehmald turned the chair off. The glowing and the noise vanished. He then removed the headset from Toma. The carpenter felt lightheaded and extremely dizzy. His body was stumbling as he stood up from the chair.
        “Now, Toma,” Nehmald began. “Jump into the air, but fly- fly Toma, fly!”  The carpenter leaped a few feet into the air, and just when gravity was about to pull him back down, he soared out of the park, hundreds of feet airborne. Thousands of gasps followed the ‘whoosh’ of air Toma left behind.
        “Something tells me Toma isn’t coming back for awhile.” The crowd laughed in excitement at Nehmald’s comment. He paused for awhile, allowing people to converse between themselves. Nehmald’s eye was caught at Janus’s strange armor. “You sir!” Nehmald called, pointing his finger at Janus. “The one in the blue armor!”
SOUNDTRACK- DreamSeed Matrix
        Janus pointed to himself. “Me?”
        Nehmald called, “Yes you! Come up here!” Before Janus could resist, the crowd began patting him on the back. The hundreds of slaps pushed Janus forward to the deck of the wooden platform. “Come on!” Nehmald said, reaching his hand down to Janus. He quickly grabbed it and pulled him up.
        “What’s your name?” Nehmald asked, leading him to the chair.
        He hesitated, but figured to just go along with it- “My name is Janus.”
        “Well Janus, have a seat.” Nehmald motioned towards to chrome chair. Janus sat down as Nehmald continued to talk. “Get ready for the ride of your life, Janus!”
        “What?” he said as Nehmald pulled the headset over his face.
        “Here we go!!!!” He turned the knob. Janus’s mind surged. All he could see was yellow, blinding yellow light that sparkled in his mind as his eyes were shut tightly. However, something was wrong. Janus’s mind was beginning to overload as he felt the armor of his shoulder’s vibrate fiercely.
        He threw the headset off of him, and stumbled forward on the platform, falling to his knees. His hands and shoulder’s were glowing yellow. The glow left left shortly. The young man’s felt deluged with mystical energy.
        His dizziness caused the world to spin. He looked behind him to see that the chair was in flames. He then noticed Nehmald and the entire crowd were staring open mouthed off to the horizon. Something had gone horribly wrong.
        Antilia’s reactor had burst into a tremendous explosion. A huge cloud poised hundreds of feet above the land, as a thin column of fire held it up, like a gigantic nuclear mushroom looming over the kingdom. The crowd was bewildered, dumbfounded, terrified, and dead silent as they all stood there motionless with their wide eyes watching the massive cloud sink to the ground. The blast’s heat incinerated the cloud the lower it fell.
        Janus, on the other hand, was more worried about his head.  Barely able to keep himself from vomiting all over the platform, he leaped down from the stage and ran off out of the park...